Today I was asked in an interview about folks who use the weirdness of ✨quantum✨ to hawk pseudoscience junk. I think that kind of grift proliferates because of a big misunderstanding a lot of folks have about quantum mechanics, which is not really their fault!
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06.01.2025 15:58 — 👍 1768 🔁 351 💬 49 📌 38
The top of the first page, as published in the proceedings of the Royal Society, contains an explanatory note that reads:
VII. On the Means of discovering the Distance, Magnitude, Sec. of the Fixed Stars, in consequence of the Diminution of the Velocity of their Light, in case such a Diminution fould be found to take place in any of them, and such other Data should be procured from Observations, as would be farther necessary for that Purpose. By the Rev. John Michell, B. D. F. R. S.
In a Letter to Henry Cavendish, Ef. F.R. S. and A. S.
Read November 27, 1783.
The passage reads:
16. Hence, according to article 10, if the semi-diameter of a sphere of the same density with the sun were to exceed that of the sun in the proportion of 500 to 1, a body falling from an infinite height towards it, would have acquired at its surface a greater velocity than that of light, and consequently, supposing light to be attracted by the same force in proportion to its vis inertia, with other bodies, all light emitted from such a body would be made to return towards it, by its own proper gravity.
The Reverend John Michell had his friend Henry Cavendish present a paper to the Royal Society #OTD in 1783, that included the first prediction of what (given the understanding of gravity at the time) you might call a Black Hole.
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royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1...
27.11.2024 18:49 — 👍 298 🔁 48 💬 7 📌 6
To accompany all those BlueSky science/academia #starterpacks, let’s share introductions to the literature of our fields
Gravitational-wave papers (created with observablehq.com/@guillaume-l...)
When the intro starts "We have opened a new window" you know you can skip a couple of paragraphs
19.11.2024 10:16 — 👍 67 🔁 19 💬 6 📌 4
