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Timoer

@timoer.bsky.social
648 followers 494 following 1.2K posts

Wannabee science historian, PhD in chemistry. Fan of Davy, Dirac, Dennett and a few others. Read a lot (non-fiction). One man search engine.

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Freya Blekman @freyablekman.bsky.social · 12h
Besides that Francis is a really nice person too (and arguably the only experiment spokesperson who has never been to the experiment, something he likes to joke about) www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physi...
nobelprize.org
Nobel Prize in Physics 2026
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2026 was awarded to Francis Halzen “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.”
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Diane Coyle @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social · 5h
I’m partway through. Even having read the 2 volume version, this is a fantastic book
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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 10h
A lot of excitement on here about the article in Science summarising the discoveries of @alistairsponsel.bsky.social and Brian Sutton, just published in the Journal of the History of Biology. Some people have asked, so here is what I think they show, and what are the implications:
link.springer.com
Photograph 49 is the Key to Understanding the History of Rosalind Franklin’s DNA Photograph 51 - Journal of the History of Biology
This essay, co-authored by a historian of science and an X-ray crystallographer, sheds new light on Rosalind Franklin’s Photograph 51. We refute the infamous claim that, unlike James Watson, Franklin ...
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Nathaniel Comfort @nccomfort.bsky.social · 23h
Exciting new historical work on Rosalind Franklin continues to appear. This is a neat bit of sleuthing by historian @alistairsponsel.bsky.social and crystallographer Brian Sutton. Here's the DOI to the actual article (it's OA): 10.1007/s10739-026-09866-7 The main finding is an x-ray image of exactly
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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Sure, Photograph 51 is cool, but if you really want to understand Rosalind Franklin's DNA research, you need to look at Photograph 49! Congrats to @alistairsponsel.bsky.social & Brian Sutton on the publication of their compelling new @jhistbiol.bsky.social article! #histSTM #histsci #biology 🗃️📜🧬
link.springer.com
Photograph 49 is the Key to Understanding the History of Rosalind Franklin’s DNA Photograph 51 - Journal of the History of Biology
This essay, co-authored by a historian of science and an X-ray crystallographer, sheds new light on Rosalind Franklin’s Photograph 51. We refute the infamous claim that, unlike James Watson, Franklin ...
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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Did #Galileo design a four-lens telescope at some point before 1630? In a new Annals of Science article, José María Moreno Madrid examines a treatise by Spanish friar Ignacio Muñoz that hints at that possibility. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #histSTM #histastro #astronomy #ScholarSunday 🗃️📜🔭
Excerpt from De Tellescopiis Stellarum by Dominican firar Ignacio Muñoz.

**Latin text**
De Tellescopiis Stellarum
156] Anno 1666 in civitate Mexicana die 8 Augusti Pro RexNovae Hispaniae D. Antonio de Toledo, Marchio de Manseramihi accommodavit Tellescopium fabricatum a Galilaeocuius fabricam examinavi, ut videre est in sequentibusproportionibus, et mensuris. Constat specillis 4. Primumspecillum lenticulare ut in .A. cuius semidiameter .A.B. etlunula eius .C. Exterior. Et .C.D. circellus, seu annulusretinens lunulam.Haec approximatur oculo, sed oculus ponitur in .E.respiciens per parvum foramen quasi pupilla oculi distat avitro .A. distantia .E.A.Secundum specillum omnino aequale est primo .C. et eiussemidiameter .A.F. quam etiam (re exactius examinata)judico esse veram semidiametrum primi specilli. Distatsecunda luna a prima quanta est linea sequens.G. Hic lunasecunda est lenticularis.

**English translation**
On the Telescopes of the Stars
156] On August 8, 1666, in Mexico City, the viceroy of NewSpain D. Antonio de Toledo, Marquis of Mancera, handed mea telescope fabricated by Galileo, the construction of which Iexamined, as can be seen in the following proportions andmeasurements. It consists of four lenses. The first lens islenticular, as in .A., whose semi-diameter is .A.B., and itscurved surface (lunula) is .C. – exterior – and .C.D. is thesmall ring holding the lens surface (lunula).It is brought close to the eye, but the eye is set at .E., lookingthrough a small hole about the size of the pupil. The eye isdistant from the glass .A. the distance .E.A.The second lens is entirely the same as the first .C. andits semidiameter is .A.F., which, upon closer examination,I judge to be the true semidiameter of the first lens.The second lens is as distant from the first as the length ofthe following line .G. This second lens is lenticular.
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Shit! That is terrible. Take care.
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Asterix Archiv 🐗 @comedix.de · 05/10/2026
Schon gewusst? Auf der letzten Seite von #Asterix und der Greif wird eine kleine, traurige Eule abgebildet, die mit einem Rucksack aus dem Bild läuft. Diese Eule und der heulende Idefix haben eine besondere Bedeutung, hier in 3 Teilen erklärt:
Beim abendlichen Schlussbankett liegt der Barde Troubadix gefesselt am Baum und wundert sich über eine kleine Eule, die nach rechts aus dem Bild geht. Idefix jault.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 03/10/2026
I have absolutely wondered about this. Amazing.
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Dr Anna Clark @drannaclark.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
View of Leiden, c. 1650, oil on oak panel painted by Jan van Goyen, 1596-1656, versatile Dutch landscape artist, master of atmospheric, river scenes in silvery-grey tones, with low horizons & large skies. Amsterdam Museum
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Ik vind alles van die man goed
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Karl Galle @karlgalle.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
In related news, how did I not know that a new open-access English translation of Kepler's Dioptrice (1611) -- his second major optics work, and the first detailed printed theory of how telescopes work -- just came out last year? books.radbouduniversitypress.nl/index.php/ru... #HistSTM #EarlyModern
Cover image for Søren Larsen's Engish translation of Johannes Kepler's 1611 book Dioptrice.
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Sterkte!
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Martijn van Calmthout @martijnvanc.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Las een (goed) boek, schreef een stukje. www.trouw.nl/boeken/steph...
trouw.nl
Stephen Hawking was geen superheld, maar een genie met haast
Graham Farmelo schreef een verfrissende biografie over natuurkundige Stephen Hawking (1942-2018), waarin ook zijn minder fraaie kanten aan bod komen: geldingsdrang en ijdelheid.
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Ist es sicherlich nicht nein. Habe selber nur mit Antimon elektroden gearbeitet, hatte kein Problemen, war aber froh das es nur kurz war.
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Ich möchte auch noch Antimony (Sb) nennen. Eine (von manche) bedeutung von Antimoon könnte “Monk-Killer” sein.
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Thony Christie @rmathematicus.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Book Review: thonyc.wordpress.com/2026/10/01/v...
Cover of A Universe of Earths
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The business guy sounds suspiciously Australian
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Ik wilde een fietslampje kopen bij de Hema, maar twijfel nu toch gezien de afmeting
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Dr Anna Clark @drannaclark.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The Avenue at Middelharnis, 1689, road lined with alders, leads to village with church tower, port with masts; clouds on a low horizon; masterpiece of perspective by Meindert Hobbema, Dutch Golden Age artist 1638-1709, pupil of Jacob van Ruisdael; inspired Pissarro, Hockney. National Gallery London
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Linda Andersson Burnett @lindaaburnett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The Instructing Colonial Natural History Seminar Series is back and we have a stellar line up: @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social, 6 Oct; @cberiksen.bsky.social, 28 Oct; Jim Endersby, 25 Nov; and Ma. Mercedes G. Planta, 9 Dec. All seminars are on Zoom, 15-16 CET
Poster for Instructing Colonial Natural History, Autumn Term 2026 seminar series. The design uses an 1785 watercolour by Sarah Stone showing the interior of Sir Ashton Lever’s Museum in Leicester Square, London: a dark green natural-history collection crowded with display cabinets, birds, shells, antlers and other specimens, with green curtains opening onto receding galleries and a large elephant on the right. Four online seminars are listed: Sadiah Qureshi, 6 October; Christoffer Basse Eriksen, 28 October; Jim Endersby, 25 November; and Ma. Mercedes G. Planta, 9 December. All seminars are on Zoom, 15.00–16.00 CET. Registration: instructingnaturalhistory@uu.se
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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This afternoon in 1957, at the Mayak Plant in the closed city of Chelyabinsk-65 in Russia, near Kyshtym in the Southern Urals, a stainless steel tank holding 70-80 tons of highly-radioactive waste from extracting plutonium for nuclear weapons exploded, releasing 20 million curies of radioactivity.
A Google Earth satellite color photograph of Chelyabinsk-65.
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Thony Christie @rmathematicus.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Michael Servetus, the first European to discover pulmonary blood circulation and who was condemned and executed by the Calvinist for blasphemy, was born 29 September 1511 #histsci #histmed thonyc.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/n...
thonyc.wordpress.com
Not a martyr for science.
Those who still mistakenly subscribe to the White-Draper hypothesis of a war of religion against science, and these days it is mostly gnu atheists and their ilk, invariably produce lists of the mar…
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Mike Isaacson @vulgareconomics.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It is remarkable that this company has hemmoraged more money than the budgets of entire government agencies
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The Moscow Times @themoscowtimes.com · 28/09/2026
Sophie Pinkham’s “The Oak and the Larch: A Forest History of Russia and its Empires” has won the Pushkin House Book Prize 2026. In an interview, she spoke about the forest’s hold on the Russian imagination and its links to colonialism:
themoscowtimes.com
‘The Forest Shaped Russian Life’: Sophie Pinkham on the Woodlands That Built an Empire - The Moscow Times
Forests have served as both refuge and resource throughout Russian history.
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Lijkt me een open deur
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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" 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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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I cited William Grove’s paper (on Fuel Cells) in Philosophical Magazine 1839 in my thesis.
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Liesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A programme! A veritable programme! Would you look at these cool talks for our Autumn line-up, with dream team @bobpi.bsky.social, @ninondubourg.bsky.social, and @ewatson.bsky.social Join us at the @ihr.bsky.social (or on zoom) on Fridays at 17:30 www.history.ac.uk/news-events/... #LowCountries
Autumn term programme for the Low Countries seminar at the Institute f Historical research on Fridays at 17:30

23 Oct	Bob Pierik (Brussels), ‘Water, Space and Environmental Inequality in Early Modern Amsterdam’ 
 
20 Nov	Ninon Dubourgh (Cologne), ‘Between Old Age, Illness, and Disability: Everyday Care in the Hospitals of Late Medieval Liège’ 
 
18 Dec	Elise Watson (Edinburgh), ‘”For women by women”: Gendered Networks in Operation in the Dutch Book Trade’
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Dan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Ah yes the circle of life
• Dispatched
Sep 25 23:03 pm
In Transit
Sep 26 09:52 am
Delayed
Sep 26 10:57 am
Held By Carrier
Sep 26 15:07 pm
Destroyed
Sep 26 15:08 pm
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Dr Anna Clark @drannaclark.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
A Vase of Flowers c 1660 by Abraham Mignon, German still life artist (1640-1679) active in Utrecht. Profuse, vibrant composition of flowers & insects, with rare flamed tulip Semper Augustus & pink Rosa Centifolia, arranged in glass vase reflecting cloudy sky; with dark background of stone niche. 1/2
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Or never made Platinum colloids for their Pt on Carbon electrodes.
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Thanks! Will look it up.
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Now reading Andrew Hui’s The Study. Very detailed, not sure that I am going to finish it.
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
More than just a history of Russia, this excellent book is also a history of Russian literature, ecology, environmentalism, etc. Recommended! Book 40 (or thereabout) of this year.
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Cranberries in Dutch are also called Peatberries, not sure that the Cran comes from Low German….
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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" 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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Sara Gibbs @sararoseg.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
He imposed Shania Law
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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I was genuinely on the edge of my seat
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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Girl dinner
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Happy Birthday from Arnhem, The Netherlands, currently in Pincher Creek, AB, Canada however
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Paul Halpern @phalpern.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Thrilled that Nobel laureate astrophysicist Jim Peebles has endorsed THE GREAT ATOM DEBATE, calling it "a fascinating account of the roles Ernst Mach and Ludwig Boltzmann played in the establishment of modern physics." Preorder now: www.amazon.com/Great-Atom-D... bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"In some places Rome does not fall at all. In others, such as Italy, there are multiple, sometimes repeated farewell parties, where the guests do not want to leave and the host does not switch the music off." How do we think about the Fall of Rome today? www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Towards and beyond the ‘Fall’: rethinking Rome’s end | The Journal of Roman Studies | Cambridge Core
Towards and beyond the ‘Fall’: rethinking Rome’s end
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
What's a thermodynamic computer? Funny you should ask. www.quantamagazine.org/thermodynami...
quantamagazine.org
Thermodynamic Computers Go With the (Energy) Flow | Quanta Magazine
Today’s computers need safeguards against random energy fluctuations. Thermodynamic computers would put those fluctuations to use.
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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Day two of promoting this! They’ve jumped from 41% to 54% of their fundraising goal since yesterday.
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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
They've reached 75% of their funding goal -- please spread this around if you're able.
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Princeton University Press @princetonupress.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
We're thrilled to be co-sponsoring the 2026 E.H. Gombrich Lecture Series next week, 22-24 September at 6:00 pm BST, with @warburginstitute.bsky.social! Dr. Anthony Grafton of @princeton.edu will deliver this three-part lecture series on the life & controversies of Joseph Scaliger. Details below:
Anthony Grafton
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David Bowie News @davidbowienews.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
David Bowie, Amstel Hotel, Amsterdam, 1974, by Peter Mazel.
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Timoer @timoer.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Picked up this book at the Harvard book store. 10 pages into it, already like it very much.
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