Chad Orzel

People should understand that mRNA vaccines were the next frontier in disease prevention and treatment. We have barely any idea what they’re capable of, because we’ve only just begun exploring the possibilities. Among those, potentially: AIDS, various cancers, and all respiratory viruses (at once).

As a science educator, one of the things you learn very early on, basically from your first assessment / follow-up survey, is that you can never tell what any given participant’s #1 takeaway is going to be.

Case in point:

Notes Toward "Travel Baseball: The Show" Netflix, call me.

Something a little lighter for today, taking up a question asked at one of The Pip's games: Why isn't there a Netflix/Prime/Apple show based around youth travel sports? open.substack.com/pub/chadorze...

Red sun seen through clouds and haze

Ominous image from this morning's dog walk:

On Quantum Foundations Today in "Evergreen Post Topics"

Re-posting the link for the dinnertime crowd: I was at a workshop on quantum physics this past weekend, which led directly to me blogging about the status of quantum foundations research: open.substack.com/pub/chadorze...

I wish we would stop teaching American teenagers that poetry is just fancy prose with Meaningful Line Breaks.

Traditional group schooling is good. You need to learn how to exist with other people. Your oh-so-special child is not that special.

On Quantum Foundations Today in "Evergreen Post Topics"

In which a well-timed talk by @seanmcarroll.bsky.social gets me to write about quantum foundations research and its importance to physics overall: open.substack.com/pub/chadorze...

Partially submerged turtle in weeds with its head almost completely pulled into its shell.

How your email finds me:

Brown and white streaked wading bird stepping right to left from water up onto a mossy rock.

Highlight of today's photo hike was this green heron picking its way along the opposite bank of a creek:

most people are *bad* writers. if a tool is available that lets them be mediocre writers for one of the few times in their life when the quality of writing will matter for them, that's not a bad thing - assuming (big assumption) that they think to actually fact check it.

this is not true. many, many people are good thinkers without being good writers. people who *are* good writers tend to vastly overestimate what a component of intelligence it is. but I have edited many intelligent and thoughtful people who were at best average-to-mediocre writers ...

If you're teaching the subject at a level where students will be solving eigenvalue problems for specific potentials, the bulk of the time needs to be spent on tools and techniques for that. When they've either got the basics down or can't use much math at all, talk more philosophy.

Quantum foundations should absolutely be mentioned, but how much time should be spent depends on the level of the course, in a kind of "U" shape-- more discussion in upper-level electives, less in intermediate courses, but then more in Gen Ed or special intro contexts.

A true Maryland icon:

I sort of enjoy the way that the columns on (my graduate alma mater) Maryland's utilitarian box of a Physics building feel like a grudging concession to the general aesthetic of the campus. "Ugh, FINE, we'll tack on a decorative facade, but we're not doing a sloped roof and that's final."

"Whatever Niels Bohr thought about the specific situation being considered."

my favorite bluesky arguments are the long drawn-out ones where person a responds via direct reply and person b exclusively answers through quote-posts. it's like seeing two people arguing on the street with one person facing sideways and shouting into the open door of a baskin robbins

"Physicists were very late to accept the existence of atoms. Chemists were on that early. This is the one time chemists were ahead." -- @seanmcarroll.bsky.social

I'm sure this will settle everything, good job everyone.

i have an incredibly clear memory of hearing magic johnson was HIV+ when i was in high school, thinking, "jeez, he's gonna be dead soon," and then being increasingly awestruck that it never happened

If nothing else, it's incredible how much ESPN has allowed their brand to be deteriorated that people now see them as an outlet that will actually ruin preexisting good sports shows.

Some of the parents were talking at The Pip's most recent travel baseball game, and agreed that it's kind of incredible there isn't a Netflix/Apple/Prime show based on youth travel sports.

Me firing a musket: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!

Me reloading the musket: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.

Our partner company specializes in deploying the power of AI to assist in navigating situations where your spouse’s mother is an ardent Marxist Leninist who serves in the military. We’re very excited about the potential of the Mil ML MiL ML space.

My AI startup uses state of the art models to ensure that your documents have perfect spacing between letters. We exclusively specialize in preparing packaging for duraflame logs and other media intended for consumption by fire, so the space we’re in is machine learning burning kerning.

It's time for Yankees baseball.

In lieu of using LLMs, consider searching for information by using a Boggle board before setting fire to a forest.

Two white-tail deer in the woods looking back at the camera, seen through trees

Realized this morning that I could go do a photo hike BEFORE it was a billion degrees out, and the highlight was definitely these two

Today is Moving Day for me so I thought I’d compile all the Moving Tips I think of to help with your next move! List starts here:

1. Never move
2. Simply live where you live now, forever
3. Whatever stress your current home causes you is lower than the years of stress racked up in one day of moving