ProfBrianCox's Avatar

ProfBrianCox

@profbriancox.bsky.social

Professor of Particle Physics at The University of Manchester and Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science

71,346 Followers  |  115 Following  |  61 Posts  |  Joined: 26.07.2023  |  1.9703

Latest posts by profbriancox.bsky.social on Bluesky

Preview
Loeb’s 3I/ATLAS “Anomalies” Explained Avi Loeb continues to claim that 3I/ATLAS has many anomalous behaviors that lead to the conclusion that it “might” be an alien spacecraft.  He carefully hedges the probability that it is a spacecraft ...

I've summarized the truth about Loeb's 10 "anomalies" about 3I/ATLAS in one post.

Thanks to @deschscoveries.bsky.social @michael-w-busch.bsky.social @cometary.org and @marshall-eubanks.bsky.social for contributing their expertise!

10.11.2025 00:22 — 👍 202    🔁 66    💬 14    📌 13
Preview
Who Owns Space? Professor Brian Cox and an expert panel tackle the technology, politics and ethics of space exploration.   From space tourism to the search for life on Mars, space is a rapidly expanding, multi-trill...

Hey space fans! The podcast I recorded with @profbriancox.bsky.social and other fab folks is out now! www.lnk.to/AQOSSpacePA

It’s all about who owns space - increasingly important as we rely on it for so much of our communication.

Bonus photos here too: crick.chorus.thirdlight.com/link/5r04kyg...

30.10.2025 06:58 — 👍 18    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 0

Yes! You must have recorded it on a TDK AD-C90 or something!

01.10.2025 06:25 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

This was a great gig - if I remember right, Scott Gorham played the encore with us - Don’t Believe a Word and The Boys Are Back In Town.

28.09.2025 00:00 — 👍 80    🔁 0    💬 4    📌 0

This was great fun to record and challenging and fascinating, but honestly I still don’t know what conscious is - beyond an emergent property of a network - and I’m not even sure @anilseth.bsky.social agrees with that :-)

10.09.2025 17:48 — 👍 70    🔁 4    💬 3    📌 0

Those were the days …. brains in buckets ….

31.08.2025 07:24 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Promotional banner for 'A Question of Science' with Brian Cox. The title is in bold white text placed over a large black question mark. Surrounding the text are science-related images, including colorful capsules, a pink brain, and a bitten glazed donut. The Francis Crick Institute logo and the BBC Studios logo appear. Brian Cox’s face also appears at the bottom center.

Promotional banner for 'A Question of Science' with Brian Cox. The title is in bold white text placed over a large black question mark. Surrounding the text are science-related images, including colorful capsules, a pink brain, and a bitten glazed donut. The Francis Crick Institute logo and the BBC Studios logo appear. Brian Cox’s face also appears at the bottom center.

Join the live studio audience at the recording of our new podcast, A Question of Science 🎙️

On 21 March, we’re talking all things ageing with @statto.bsky.social, Paul Nurse, Linda Partridge and Lynne Cox.

Book your free ticket to put your questions to the panel ⤵️
lostintv.com/aqos.htm

12.03.2025 17:25 — 👍 41    🔁 6    💬 0    📌 2

Yes indeed - 20 years ago …. I don’t think we’ve changed much :-)

24.12.2024 11:35 — 👍 10    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0

I think we should go for both - sort of like the 12 days of Christmas. A 2 week-long Feast of Astronomy.

22.12.2024 08:57 — 👍 28    🔁 3    💬 2    📌 0

Huge congratulations - I agree that completing a PhD is both tremendously difficult and tremendously rewarding.

11.12.2024 19:37 — 👍 39    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

It does doesn’t it! Total bollocks.

06.12.2024 13:01 — 👍 11    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

:-)

06.12.2024 12:58 — 👍 6    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I could not agree more. I think most people vote optimistically - for the party they believe will offer a better future. Aiming for competence is not a compelling vision, although admittedly at the last election it was sufficient given the circumstances!

04.12.2024 22:36 — 👍 51    🔁 2    💬 2    📌 0

In person tickets are full, but online viewers still very welcome for tomorrow's Gresham lecture.

03.12.2024 13:32 — 👍 68    🔁 10    💬 3    📌 0
Preview
Brexit makes no sense in a world dominated by Trump. Britain’s place is back in the EU | Jonathan Freedland From defence to trade, the incoming US president is upending the old order – and standing apart from our neighbours leaves us dangerously exposed, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland

🚨🚨 "Brexit makes no sense in a world dominated by Trump. Britain’s place is back in the EU". Great column by @jonathanfreedland.bsky.social on #brexit and the election of Donald Trump which I think has been widely misconstrued in some quarters. /1 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

02.12.2024 16:24 — 👍 846    🔁 245    💬 13    📌 9

I don’t agree. I can’t see the big picture - what is the U.K’s place in the world? Are we to regain our place in Europe or attempt to be a lower-tax, deregulated country which is more US facing? The big strategic questions can’t be dodged much longer.

02.12.2024 12:25 — 👍 11    🔁 0    💬 3    📌 0

It’s called Titanic.

02.12.2024 09:24 — 👍 9    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Yes. I’m pretty fed up with ‘red lines’.

02.12.2024 09:19 — 👍 10    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I still agree with myself - I think that was 2014!

02.12.2024 09:19 — 👍 11    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

I would add that Labour’s relaunch reads as a list of policies they would like to enact if the plan works. But I don’t see a plan. In 2025 (in my view) they will have to either set the country on trajectory to rejoin SM and CU or align more closely with US. Rudderless mid-Atlantic is unsustainable.

02.12.2024 09:12 — 👍 289    🔁 54    💬 19    📌 6
Preview
Every dumb thought I have ever had about Christmas songs Ho ho bleedin’ ho.

"Chris Rea is from Middlesbrough. This means that Driving Home For Christmas is essentially a song about being stuck in a traffic jam on the A1(M)."

Anyway, it's December, and you know what that means.

01.12.2024 09:27 — 👍 382    🔁 69    💬 40    📌 15

It is the same, yes. Which leads to the twins paradox. The resolution is the symmetry between the clocks is broken when one accelerates (changes direction) to return and meet the other. If you google it, note that the AI summary is wrong. You don’t need General Relativity to deal with the problem.

27.11.2024 07:35 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Everyone has to have the same protection going down there whether they are mining or not - so I suppose it’s to do with mining!

22.11.2024 13:14 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

It’s a very impressive operation. The first time I went down was in the late ‘90s. Maybe he was as manager then?

22.11.2024 13:04 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 2    📌 0
Post image

Spent the day at Boulby Underground Lab near Whitby - 1.1km underground. Dark matter searches, neutrino physics, very low cosmic ray and background radiation suitable for (amongst many other things) quantum computing. It’s a pretty unique facility and the mine is remarkable - over 100km of tunnels!

21.11.2024 19:18 — 👍 694    🔁 29    💬 28    📌 3

I finally started watching The Last of Us (I know I’m very late) and now I’m paranoid about getting athletes foot.

17.11.2024 20:51 — 👍 588    🔁 9    💬 30    📌 2
Bluesky Network Analyzer Find accounts that you don't follow (yet) but are followed by lots of accounts that you do follow.

This is really good
bsky-follow-finder.theo.io

17.11.2024 07:53 — 👍 135    🔁 56    💬 11    📌 6

Greenfield originally. I used to live in Lydgate.

16.11.2024 10:50 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 2    📌 0

My family are from Saddleworth which really should be thought of as the West Riding of Yorkshire. Although I was born in Oldham and that is certainly Lancashire.

16.11.2024 09:51 — 👍 7    🔁 0    💬 3    📌 0

The best thing about this image: the night side of Saturn. It’s not totally dark. Why not? Because it’s vaguely lit by light that has reflected from the rings. If you could somehow stand on the top of Saturn’s clouds, when it’s night, your world would be brightly lit by the huge yellow arc of rings.

16.11.2024 07:19 — 👍 555    🔁 97    💬 8    📌 3

@profbriancox is following 20 prominent accounts