John Dudley

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Addio a Orazio Svelto, pioniere della ricerca sui laser in Italia - Fisica e Matematica - Ansa.it Addio al fisico Orazio Svelto: è morto oggi a Milano, a 89 anni, il pioniere della ricerca sui laser in Italia e figura cardine dell'elettronica quantistica a livello internazionale. (ANSA)

So sad to see the loss of another laser pioneer with the passing of Orazio Svelto on 10 Jan. As well as being an inspiring scientist who helped create the European ultrafast community, he was gracious and generous with his time and support for international science. www.ansa.it/canale_scien...

Wonderful news and heartfelt congratulations to UCL prof Polina Bayvel on being named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2026 New Year Honours List. A truly outstanding and well-deserved achievement. Congratulations, Polina!

YouTube video by C2N Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies L'histoire des boîtes quantiques

History of Quantum Dots: It was a pleasure to collaborate to this movie on the history of quantum dots. Produced as part of of the PÉPITES program of the French Optical Society, SFO. @c2n-nanos.bsky.social

youtu.be/p89chOVElSA?...

Useful and infuriating in being unable to get it stopped once it's moving 😊

Am also wondering now whether the 1972 nomination had advance knowledge of the Clauser experiment ... Clearly some work for historians!

A good time to do this would likely be 2033 ... There would be many more nominations, and it would be a year before the 70 th anniversary. Perfect timing to see how things were received after the Aspect experiment as well.

We here in Madison do not do a good job celebrating this, but we should:

I think you have to go to Stockholm with a good reason. Can't blame them otherwise they'd spend all their time opening the archives.

Looks like it's time to make a big deal of this @mickeykats.bsky.social Won't be difficult, just need a high profile first speaker and there'll be plenty willing to come to a lecture with such a prestigious title!

What what what??? You should have an annual Bell Day Lecture yourselves!!!

I wondered the same. It might be because there wasn't always a clean "nomination" asked, but people just wrote letters. Extracting a concise "nomination" for all the historical prizes would likely be too much work. If you're a historian you can ask to consult the original documents I think.

International Day of Women and Girls in Science | United Nations The purpose of the day is to achieve full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls.

There is the 11 February - www.un.org/en/observanc... The date here does not correspond to any particular historical event and I am guessing the avoided 11 November as it would have been too close to the existing World Science Day www.un.org/en/observanc...

Today is Lise Meitner's birthday, as well as Marie Curie. I wrote this blogpost about Meitner and her life a while back. Let's celebrate the woman who 'never lost her humanity'. occamstypewriter.org/athenedonald...

Nomination%20Archive mycontent

John Bell released Bell's theorem on 4 November 1964. home.cern/news/news/ph... In 1972, Bernard d'Espagnat was the first to nominate him for the Nobel Prize. As the Nobel archives progressively come on line, we will surely see that he was nominated very many times afterwards as well ...

Some of the decisions I have seen in universities over the years also seem like astrology to me :-)

Perfect then! Agree with the sentiment anyway - far too many distractions in academia!

No better than @rmathematicus.bsky.social for a wee check of the context here ...

Yep - very humble and as long as there's some physics to discuss, he's always interested to give time.

Theoretical physicist Michael Berry wins 2025 Isaac Newton Medal and Prize – Physics World Berry recognized for his contributions in mathematics and theoretical physics over a 60-year career

Great news for Michael Berry who has received the Isaac Newton medal of the IOP. What I absolutely love about his work is that it cuts across so many different areas of physics - from the foundations of quantum physics to understanding the rainbow. physicsworld.com/a/theoretica...

Those outside the field really don't pay enough attention to what goes on in condensed matter. Indeed, even the excellent DPG Quantum History Wall didn't include yesterday's Nobel Prize winning work on tunnelling in its list of quantum milestones of the 1980s! www.quantum-history.de

If you love supercontinuum (and who doesn't!) check out our forward-looking Perspective in EPL which is free to read. Thanks @jctravs.bsky.social Thibaut Sylvestre, Alex Heidt, Roy Taylor, Goery Genty iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Reposting to @tsizer.bsky.social via JL Beylat. What about a tribute at the 100 year session at ECOC ?

Very sad to hear that the great soliton pioneer Akira Hasegawa has died on June 22. His work truly was revolutionary in so many ways and impacted so many different fields. An obituary from Columbia is below. www.apam.columbia.edu/memoriam-pro...

Over in the other place, Grok actually gets it right ...

I got a different result !!

Anyone with a library endowment fund who doesn't know what to do with it? First edition of Opticks for sale!

Setup to measure potential drop from a plasma ball. Showing glowing ball and antenna and oscilloscope.

I just had some fun verifing the 1/r potential drop from a plasma ball. The idea is from @simonpoliakoff.bsky.social
and his video is here: youtube.com/watch?v=crW7... To get close to the ball (5 mm) I used a 10kOhm feedthrough terminator which yields around 25 V peak-peak !

Just been too busy lately but starting to get back to social media again. Hope you've managed somewhere nice to cycle around this summer!