iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Do you teach physics and need support? Consider applying to the Bauder Fund for assistance with special physics teaching activities. Deadline to apply is December 1. Learn more at ow.ly/c6mV50YnbWE #AAPTFunding #AAPTGrants

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Dr. Raven the Science Maven @ravenscimaven.bsky.social · 22h

Have some movement goals? Want a walking buddy? Also, wanna earn some money betting on your goals? I'm hosting Nerd Walk on StepBet where we're being nerds and walking together get.stepbet.com/SnJA/pjh53cgf

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AAPTHQ @aapthq.bsky.social · 23h

Excited for #AAPTWM27? Don’t miss out on the fantastic workshops happening on January 9th! Workshops fill up fast—secure your spot early! Explore the lineup and add your favorites to your registration: ow.ly/vSPy50ZQCNL #AAPTMeeting #AAPTConference

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Vincent Ledvina @vincentledvina.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Want to get alerted when mid-latitude aurora may be on the way? Sign up for my email list which includes free aurora alert emails when NOAA SWPC sends out a G2 or higher geomagnetic storm watch. go.theauroraguy.com/alerts

go.theauroraguy.com

Know before the sky lights up

When a G2 or stronger storm is forecast, I email you what is coming, when it could hit, and who could see aurora.

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Astronomer and mathematician Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, exact date of birth unknown, was born around this time in 1698 and baptized #OTD. He was among the first to articulate the Principle of Least Action, one of the most beautiful ideas in physics. 🧪 ⚛️ Image: Wellcome Trust

Etching of Maupertuis. His right hand rests on a globe and his left hand points to the site like a manicule from a broadsheet. He has a long, dark, curly wig on, and a robe tied at the waist with a sash.

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Vincent Ledvina @vincentledvina.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The first 100 customers get 20% off, and the discount code goes out to my email list on launch day. You can sign up here: go.theauroraguy.com/email

go.theauroraguy.com

Join 38,000+ aurora chasers

Storm alerts, forecasts written for every level of aurora chaser, and a free aurora chasing e-book the moment you sign up.

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AAPTHQ @aapthq.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Take advantage of #AAPTWM27 Early Bird Registration rates! Register today and get ready to hear from outstanding plenary speakers, participate in workshops, informative sessions, events, and more. Early Bird rates end on October 23rd. ow.ly/xXQC50YJ4um #AAPTConference #AAPTMeeting #ITeachPhysics

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 28/09/2026

Aviation Week and Space Technology published my letter about working on the Iridium project!

NAMING CONVENTION
Executive Editor for Defense and Space Robert Wall's article "Spectrum
Battle Heats Up With Rocket Lab's Iridium Deal" (July 13-26, p. 36) brought back memories of my days at the Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. in Sunny-vale, California.
My department did some analysis for Motorola in the late 1980s. We were asked to use our expertise in satellite network coverage analysis to confirm some of the initial work on Iridium. We were told that the name came from the initial assessment that 77 satellites would be needed—77 is also the atomic number of the element iridium. Our job was to confirm this number and reduce it, if possible.
My colleagues would let us know how the analysis was going by renaming the constellation for the new number of satellites. It went from iridium to tungsten, then hafnium, ytterbium and finally to dysprosium, element number 66. Motorola wisely decided to keep the original name.
Another rumor about the name
Iridium had to do with a long-term ambition of Motorola. Iridium is found in the layer of rock that contains evidence of the asteroid impact that cauld the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Motorola was hoping their Iridium system would mark the extinction of
AT&T. That was not to be, but it is amazing to still see the name Iridium in the pages of AW&ST!
Daniel J. Burns, Auburn, California

AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/SEPTEMBER 14-27, 2026

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⭐ ᗰᗩᖇᛕ ᗩ. ǤᗩᖇᒪIᑕᛕ ⭐ @markgarlick.com · 28/09/2026

More fun with my orbital space hotel. Made in #blender. FUN only. Not a serious concept. The barrel-shaped pods are the living quarters. They're detachable in case of damage to the underlying ring. (Although, not sure how much help that will be!) #sciart #spaceart #scifi

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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

And if anyone is interested in the book version of the #Multiverse, here is me reading the start of the Multiverse chapter from "How to Design a Universe" (the mad story I tell is 100% true) 😵‍💫 🔭 www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVQ1...

youtube.com

Chapter 7! The Multiverse

YouTube video by Astronomer Royal Scotland Prof Catherine Heymans

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AAPTHQ @aapthq.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Interested in tackling AI challenges in physics education? Join the AAPT AI Leadership Working Group, a year-long action-research initiative. Apply by October 12! ow.ly/AIgI50ZSfmb #PhysicsEducation #PhysicsTeachers #AI #ITeachPhysics #AAPT

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 28/09/2026

Full moon rising over Lake of the Pines. #astrophotography

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Rhett Allain @rhettallain.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

#physics video - solving a particular solution of the 3 body problem. Equal mass stars moving in a circle. youtu.be/82ItQEntMrw

youtu.be

Physics Problem: Solution for the 3 Body Problem

YouTube video by Dot Physics

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 27/09/2026

A brilliant sundog was reflected in the lake this morning.

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 26/09/2026

Amazing show in Grass Valley last night. No video was allowed so I made this clip from a Live Photo. The tour continues with a couple of California dates, Portland and Seattle, then on to Portugal.

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Today is the big one-two-one for special relativity. In honor of this momentous occation here is a 121-post-long thread. (I am just kidding, the thread is from last year so it is only 120 posts long. [No, I am still just kidding, it is only 35 posts.]) Happy birthday, special relativity! 🧪 ⚛️ 🔭

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Joe Cossette @cossettej.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Just found out that the new budget electronic balances that we got can measure up to 5 kg and display in newtons!! Makes for some significantly simpler force stations than I had been doing :) #ITeachPhysics Amazon Link: amzn.to/4xL3t8y

Mystery mass supported by a spring scale and a balance displaying NEWTONS!!

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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 25/09/2026

Voyager Instruments xkcd.com/3302/

3-panel comic. (1) [Person with shoulder-length hair gestures at diagrams on wall in front of table with three people.] PERSON 1: As the radioactive power source on *Voyager 1* weakens, we’ve been turning instruments off to conserve power. (2) PERSON 1: Only two instruments remain. Do we want to lose the plasma wave subsystem or the magnetometer? (3) PERSON 2 with ponytail: You know, if we just turned off Greg’s LED underlighting– PERSON 4 with short hair: Absolutely not. PERSON 3: Dammit, Greg. PERSON 4: I will *not* allow us to look uncool in front of aliens.

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AAPTHQ @aapthq.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Join us for an AAPT Virtual Coffee Hour, "Dark Matter Day: Activities to Use with Students," with facilitators Marla Glover & Ken Cecire on October 12th at 7:30 pm ET. This event is open to the public. ow.ly/UpvI50ZNt19 #AAPTCoffeeHour #PhysicsEducation #ITeachPhysics

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AAPTHQ @aapthq.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Check out the Living Physics Portal! An online environment for physics educators to find, share, and discuss free teaching materials for introductory physics for life sciences (IPLS)! ow.ly/5eZa50NqeNa. #Physics #PhysicsTeachers #PhysicsEducation #ITeachPhysics

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 24/09/2026

Sporting my new Aviators gear including a Hunter Bigge autographed cap at last night’s game.

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 24/09/2026

Got to see my former student Hunter Bigge shut down the Oklahoma City Comets in the ninth last night. Unfortunately the Aviators were down by 6. Pacific Coast League championship game tonight. Hunter may be the only MLB player with a Harvard physics degree.

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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

My latest @newscientist.com cartoon. many more here: www.newscientist.com/author/tom-gauld/

Image: A graph with lots of red dots clustered together in a curve. The are all looking upwards at a single red dot wearing sunglasses.

Caption: Mike was an outlier and would probably be excluded from the study, but all the other data points secretly thought he was really cool.

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 23/09/2026

Give me your tacky, your boorish, Your befuddled asses yearning to eat free buffet.

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 23/09/2026

First time I have seen challenges to check swing calls. It seemed to work well and was quick. I guess this is coming to MLB next season, whenever that will be! 😢

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 23/09/2026

The Las Vegas Ballpark is a great place to see a game. Spacious, comfortable seats, variety of food, and Ballast Point Sculpin on tap! They even have a pool in centerfield.

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AAPTHQ @aapthq.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Check out the great workshops happening on January 9th at #AAPTWM27! Learn new teaching techniques and engage with colleagues. Register early—spots fill fast! Visit ow.ly/nK3r50ZQCNb to add them. #AAPTMeeting #AAPTConference #ITeachPhysics

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AAPTHQ @aapthq.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Early Bird Registration for #AAPTWM27 is now OPEN! Register now and get ready to hear from outstanding plenary speakers, participate in workshops, informative sessions, events, and more. Rates end on October 23. ow.ly/EAJC50ZQxqI #AAPTConference #AAPTMeeting #ITeachPhysics

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 23/09/2026

I walked from the Statue of Liberty to the Eiffel Tower, and back today! Also walked by the future home of the Athletics. The construction site had some serious security.

Stadium under construction with MGM lion watching over it

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 22/09/2026

On a flight to Las Vegas to watch a former student pitch for the AAA Aviators. This solar power plant was almost too bright to look at. Zooming in shows the mirrors glinting.

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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 22/09/2026

Tyrannosaurus xkcd.com/3300/

Comic. [Person with long hair pointing to diagram with Tyrannosaurus Rex standing next to a person.] PERSON: We now believe the primary prey of Tyrannosaurus Rex was these humans who kept standing next to it for scale.

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AAPTHQ @aapthq.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Are you an undergraduate student or high school senior enrolled or planning to enroll in a physics teacher preparation curriculum program? Apply for the Barbara Lotze Scholarship for Future Physics Teachers. Apply by December 1st. ow.ly/9Imn50QcLtj #AAPTFund #PhysicsTeachers #PhysicsEducation

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Emily Lakdawalla 🏳️‍⚧️ Uranus Expert @elakdawalla.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is super cool! And apparently it goes back at least 600 million years

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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Nobody will remember: -Your job -How busy you were -How many hours you worked. People will remember: -Fun shark facts you taught them. Here’s my favorite: Greenland sharks, which can live to be over 400 years old, eat (probably scavenging) polar bears and reindeer.

Photo of a Greenland shark by Doug Perrine

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 21/09/2026

Fulbright scholar Dr. Praveen Pathak conducted a physics with phones session at Saturday's PTSOS workshop. He shared his add-on experiment to @phyphox.org that calibrates the acceleration and integrates to find velocity and position. You can install it using the QR code below. #ITeachPhysics

teachers learning about physics with phones

screenshot showing new experiment add-on with acceleration, velocity, and position graph

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 21/09/2026

Lots of happy teachers at Saturday's PTSOS workshop for new physics teachers. In addition to our normal assortment of equipment handouts we call goodies, each participant got a mini projectile launcher with a built-in photogate! www.arborsci.com/products/min... #ITeachPhysics

a classroom full of teachers holding up the projectile launcher

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Yvette Cendes @whereisyvette.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

If @science.org is covering it, I guess I should share something here- we have for the first time definitively detected radio emission from a planet around another star! 🔭🧪🎢 What does this mean? Details in thread! (But TL;DR- still not aliens) 🧵 www.sciencenews.org/article/exop...

sciencenews.org

First radio waves seen from an exoplanet hint at otherworldly auroras

The gas giant Beta Pictoris b, about 63 light-years away, has the mass of 10 Jupiters and a magnetic field thousands of times as strong as Earth’s.

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Dr. Heather Hinam 🍁 🇨🇦 @secondnaturemb.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Sunrise song. You'll want the volume up for this one, but not too high. Every coyote within a half kilometre radius decided to make themselves known this morning while I was enjoying the sunrise from the kayak. A truly magical moment. #mammals 🌿

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 21/09/2026

The colorful naked eye Double Cluster in Perseus. They are "only" 14 million years old so they still contain many short-lived blue-white supergiants. They are approaching Earth at about 39 km/s and are 7500 light years away. How long until they reach us? Details in ALT. #astrophotography

A dense field of colorful stars with two noticeable concentrations of stars with many large blue and a few yellow and orange stars. A large field of glowing magenta hydrogen gas and stars with 3 small bright blue nebula in the middle. Taken with a Takahashi TSA 120 with a 0.7x reducer and ZWO ASI 2600MM camera. The best 530, 30s exposures out of 699 taken through LRGB filters were stacked and processed with Astro Pixel Processor, Starnet++, and Photoshop.

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PhET Interactive Simulations @phetsims.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Which one doesn't belong? 🤔 01 Build an Atom, 02 Build a Fraction, 03 Build a Molecule, 04 Build a Nucleus. Three share something; the fourth doesn't. Which is the odd one out? What's the rule?

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Astronomy Picture of the Day 🪐 @apod.shinyakato.dev · 21/09/2026

🔭 Cocoon Nebula Wide Field Image Credit & Copyright: Piotr Czerski ap260921

A starfield is shown against a patchy red-glowing
background. Two irregular brown trails occur, the lower
of which culminates in a bright pink and white region.
Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

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Dan Burns @the-physics-well.net · 20/09/2026

The reflection nebula NGC 6914 is surrounded by a web of glowing hydrogen gas. Reflection is a misnomer, it is more accurately described as a scatter nebula. Blue light is scattered more than longer wavelengths and the illuminating stars emit a lot of blue light. Details in ALT #astrophotography

A large field of glowing magenta hydrogen gas and stars with 3 small bright blue nebula in the middle. Taken with a Takahashi TSA 120 with a 0.7x reducer and ZWO ASI 2600MM camera. The best 512 60s exposures out of 527 taken through LHaRGB filters were stacked and processed with Astro Pixel Processor, Starnet++, and Photoshop. RGB stars added using 180, 15s exposures

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Robert McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Mathematician Paul Erdős had a fantasy that he'd die giving a lecture. He'd prove a result, someone would ask about a generalization, he'd respond "I'll leave that to the next generation," and then he'd die. He passed away at a conference in Warsaw #OTD in 1996, just after proving a new result. 🧪 🧮

An image of Erdős in front of a blackboard, from the documentary “N is a Number: A Portrait of Paul Erdős” by George Paul Csicsery

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Brian G Weber Photography @briangweber.com · 20/09/2026

I finally got around to a full-on blog write-up about my magical humpback whale encounter with bubble net feeding this summer. Looking through pictures again made me so happy. I hope you enjoy it as much I did! buff.ly/8COdsB2 #humpbackwhales #whales #whalewatch #ocean #blog #nerd 🦑 🐳

buff.ly

Humpback Whale Magic

🚀 Photographer of the sea and sky, occasionally the land.

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Your Internet Friend Tom Tomorrow @tomtomorrow.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

making this my new email autoreply

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Michelle says: Be kind. Always. ❤️ @snarkysillysad.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Dinnertime! #AGoodPlace Source: www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmil...

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