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Peter Onyisi

@peteronyisi.bsky.social
593 followers 139 following 555 posts

Professor of Physics at UTAustin. Member of the ATLAS Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Particle wrangler, opinionated software user, fan of Texas State Parks, Austin FC, and Newcastle United; sometimes I pick up heavy things.

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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 8h
Trying to understand homework solutions can feel a bit like biblical textual analysis. "Are these two solutions copying from each other or from an unknown common source? Are they adapting an oral tradition which is being corrupted over time?"
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 11h
Hooray for IceCube
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I feel this could be a reaction gif to something
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I wonder if this is a UT Big Idea in Science
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Gilgamesh, the Mahabharata, Beowulf, the Nibelungenlied, the Song of Roland, Don Quixote, Finnegans Wake, Mrs Dalloway: no. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats: yes
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
In a victory for something, I suppose, Simone de Beauvoir gets in but not Sartre or Camus. Of course it was certain this crowd wouldn't take Euripides
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Of course the very predictable problems with such a list have immediately appeared. There is one (1) author from Asia outside the Near East, zero from sub-Saharan Africa, but they did find space for both John Calvin and Martin Luther
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
2/3 of readings from a list of 40 authors, one half from fifty, 75% from a hundred... they're just making up numbers at this point
insidehighered.com
UT Approves List of 50 Authors for Gen Ed Course
Jane Austen, Frederick Douglass, Adam Smith and Søren Kierkegaard made the cut.
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I think people underappreciate how many science faculty started off this administration imagining that they might be ideological fellow travelers
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
(in other words a lot of people thought we could negotiate a separate peace from universities as a whole)
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Well, to be honest, a fair number were engaged in wishful thinking ("they won't touch the hard sciences surely") or agreed with culture war critiques ("if only APS hadn't made a diversity statement, we could have avoided this")
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
October 1 🇳🇬
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
FINALLY I have an answer to the question
From: FlixBus

Subject: Peter You have free will
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Trying to guess the Crank Level of this before taking a look
The right teaching of useful knowledg, to fit scholars for som [sic] honest profession shewing so much skill as anie man needeth (that is not a teacher) in all knowledges, in one schole, in a shorter time in a more plain waie, and for so much less expens than ever hath been used, since of old the arts were so taught in the Greek and Romane empire.
London: Printed by W. Du gard, and are to bee sold by John Stephenson at the sign of the Sun upon Ludgate-hill, 1649.
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This is why universities are intolerable to this movement
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
had a first experience of data only available on IPv6 and that was interesting
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I think there is some evidence to suggest that most politicians are not actually good at running large organizations
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This may be unfair, but I'm morbidly interested in whether certain Cornell faculty are as worked up about this as they were about the encampments
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
We made a bit of a bargain with the devil by selling the sciences as being technology precursors and as having rigorous evaluation metrics, unlike Those People There
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I've been thinking recently (in the wake of similar discussions in math regarding AI) that the practice of the "hard sciences" is a lot more humanist than generally let on
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Reposted by Peter Onyisi
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This is basically an internecine feud between two sets of conservatives -- University of Austin types vs. Iowa political appointees -- over who controls a center imposed on campus despite local faculty opposition. And the U Austin types are shocked, shocked by the lack of faculty (their) input.
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
My Nigerian take on American education is, we were learning fractions in third grade without electricity and in classes of 40+
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Looking forward to the next Genesis round!
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Great way to make managers happy but not actually a good way to run an organization effectively
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
It seems pretty clear that one big cause of problems across society is an increasingly dictatorial management culture where underlings are not permitted to talk back
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Reposted by Peter Onyisi
And-Boo 👻 Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
lol at this chart and the disclaimer
A Connect Four style chart labeled "Illustration of the Proportion of the Courses or Talks Offered by the University" with blue circles as "left-leaning" white circles as "most centered" and red circles as "right-leaning." There are many more blue circles. The disclaimer on the side reads "Note: the proportions shown here are purely illustrative and may not correspond to the actual proportions of course of talk offerings."
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Reposted by Peter Onyisi
Julian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
But that's no more true than imagining that trust in electoral security dropped in 2000 because of some objective failing of electoral institutions. Trust in the press and academia has declined because other institutions have found it profitable to wage a campaign meant to achieve that effect.
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Reposted by Peter Onyisi
Austin Anthem @austinanthem.org · 14/09/2026
With tonight’s 1-0 win over Rapids 2, Austin FC II are the regular season MLS NEXT Pro Champions! Austin FC II will host the first ever MLS NEXT Pro playoff match in Austin in a few weeks.
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
All I see is a bunch of happy UT students
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I'm always a sucker for a CFF video
youtu.be
Genève – Visite 3D de la gare souterraine.
YouTube video by SBB CFF FFS
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Reposted by Peter Onyisi
AAUP chapter @UT Austin @utaustinaaup.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Chaos and authoritarianism at UT Austin. Faculty have just days to show how their courses meet vague requirements of breadth and foundationalism. Proposals will be reviewed by an unspecified entity. No guarantee at all that those who review the proposals have expertise in the field.
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
My main memory of Vienna main station is the repeated reminders that arriving trains were late due to German incompetence
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
so the actual problem with long distance trains in Europe is you can be booked on an Austrian Railways train from Basel to Amsterdam on a day when all train service is cancelled in the Netherlands and you're left wondering who knows what they're going to do about it
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Social Sciences Collegiate Division stop being embarrassing challenge
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Concluding that academic administrators aren't any better at predicting the future then anyone else
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
By the way UT just decided that it was going to migrate to using this, great job everyone
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
I, for example, am one of these people. It could happen to you, go check
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Reposted by Peter Onyisi
Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 27/08/2026
Someone told me today they don’t need to defend academic freedom in “easy” cases like in Texas or at West Point because everyone knows they are bad so they only speak up about “hard” cases like Cofnas. I said it sounds like you’re only willing to defend racism and they made a face and walked away 🤦‍♂️
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
First slides with this logo
Future Circular Collider
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
So this is an *actual* academic freedom issue: an expert, raising a concern internally on the curriculum in their area of expertise, getting terminated for it
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Eduroam if you want to
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Chat, is it bad when a bridge between two new-ish engineering buildings is cordoned off for an extended period of time
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
now it is our turn to study quantum mechanics
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Move to require all faculty job applicants to write an essay on the film "Rope"
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Hard to read as other than "I could see myself in this situation"
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Hopefully enough BA/AA options to make something work?
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
As a Chicago alum, this is a really poor imitation of that institution's Core; this proposed UT version somehow manages to require more credits and provide less breadth
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
static.klipy.com
Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright: Objection!
Alt: Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright: Objection!
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
British Literature can split the baby by teaching Dubliners (1914) but not Finnegans Wake (1939)
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Peter Onyisi @peteronyisi.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
I was playing this exact game with James Joyce
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