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Markus Mosbech

@mosbech.bsky.social

Cosmology postdoc at RWTH Aachen, astroparticle physics, dark matter, nerd stuff. PhD from University of Sydney. He/him

73 Followers  |  44 Following  |  64 Posts  |  Joined: 26.07.2023  |  2.1981

Latest posts by mosbech.bsky.social on Bluesky


When I was studying, the exams that gave me the best learning outcomes were oral exams with the broad questions published in advance. It made it "easy" to study until I knew I understood everything, and possible to clarify unclear questions, but they absolutely disadvantage less confident speakers.

01.08.2025 10:19 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I similarly have very mixed feelings about any exam-based grades: evaluating a student based on one performance is obviously inadequate, but what matters is how well they know the material at the end of the course, and including performance during the course does not measure this and can add stress.

01.08.2025 09:15 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Congrats on getting it ready for release! Do you know if Bert's Books will be getting signed copies again? After picking up the first two this way, it feels like tradition by now, so I would love to continue it.

09.07.2025 21:54 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

My PhD had a "1st year ethics check" and part of it was running a piece of original writing through TurnItIn - it's less than useless for physics, flagging the entire bibliography as well as any equation that has ever appeared in another paper (and the explanation thereof).

14.05.2025 15:16 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 14    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

OLร‰, the new emulator we present here, uses Gaussian Processes to emulate cosmological observables, and is able to speed up a traditional inference pipeline by orders of magnitude! It relies on online learning, so it does this with no pre-training!

18.03.2025 09:18 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Preview
OLร‰ -- Online Learning Emulation in Cosmology In this work, we present OLร‰, a new online learning emulator for use in cosmological inference. The emulator relies on Gaussian Processes and Principal Component Analysis for efficient data compressio...

Returning to this accounts after months of inactivity because I actually have something interesting to post.

We just put a new paper on the arXiv, led by a PhD student here in Aachen:
arxiv.org/abs/2503.13183

18.03.2025 09:18 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 3    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Donโ€™t hate follow people. Lifeโ€™s too short. We are fighting fascism. Donโ€™t make yourself more miserable than necessary.

16.02.2025 22:16 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 403    ๐Ÿ” 28    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 5    ๐Ÿ“Œ 2

Lived on Parramatta Road the whole time I did my PhD (first Stanmore, then Camperdown), and this is making me homesick for Sydney!

16.02.2025 22:59 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

With the caveat that this is a particle physics thesis, I can really recommend taking a look at my good friend Zac's thesis: zacpicker.com/wp-content/u...

22.11.2024 09:53 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

In case you don't find anyone, I've had good experiences with reship.com (probably more expensive than a friend helping out, though).

14.10.2023 08:57 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Appropriate, given that Trader Joe's is owned by German grocery chain Aldi.

25.09.2023 20:12 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I would be surprised if anyone found a single post a day spammy ๐Ÿ™‚

23.09.2023 14:52 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Now you don't have to pay for the massage chair in the airport!

23.09.2023 07:25 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Oh yes, this could work for sure! It just requires that everyone follows best practices for push/pulling. However, I don't think git merging will ever be as smooth as the Google -style simultaneous editing.

21.09.2023 09:17 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 3    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

While I agree that free and open source is preferable, I think that the collaborative features of Overleaf do make collaboration much easier. No sending the.tex back and forth or dealing with conflicting versions in Dropbox.

21.09.2023 09:07 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

My favourite description is as decay of curvature: spacetime is in a high energy state and emits particles to decay to a lower energy state.
I think this description is either from Page or Teukolsky?

20.09.2023 15:16 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

It looks like it shows real galaxy data "underneath" vs dark matter simulations at earlier times

20.09.2023 14:07 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 4    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

As much as having nearly my entire time in Australia be la niรฑa was a bit sad weather-wise, this sounds like I might be lucky to be back in Europe now... (Although I am hoping for your sake that your prediction is wrong)

19.09.2023 15:39 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Ah, but this presumably requires me to not be lazy by just using plt.plot(), and actually define an axis object...

19.09.2023 13:07 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

If their ability to make batteries is as good as their spelling of their own name...

18.09.2023 08:29 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I guess academics are used to writing without compensation...

14.09.2023 23:45 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Yeah, having done a MSc in Europe, then an Australian PhD, the Master is a great way to find out if you like doing research, and learn a lot to prepare for a 3-4 year PhD or going into industry.
It is also a great opportunity to try working with someone to see if you are a good match.

12.09.2023 22:51 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

You have to back to the real old school memes. Dig up your advice animals.

10.09.2023 15:35 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

And it's not even suspicious character mustache season!

08.09.2023 14:24 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
XinRan Liu (UNDO): From Dark Matter to dark matter
Sydney CPPC Seminar 11th May 2023Abstract: The latest and final part of the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), made up of the wo... XinRan Liu (UNDO): From Dark Matter to dark matter

When I was in Sydney, we had a seminar from Xinran Liu, who transitioned from dark matter detection to carbon capture.

His seminar is available here if you are interested: youtu.be/VMmW4v6geuo?...

07.09.2023 05:57 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 2    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

"Standard" in this case also covers the fact that it is generally used as the baseline of comparisons when examining new models. E.g. a question for every particle physics model for dark matter is how it can be distinguished from "idealised" CDM.

03.09.2023 20:28 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 5    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Essentially yes, in general relativity such a term is allowed, and GR does not give any a priori arguments for what its value should be. However, similar to the case of dark matter, many physicists are looking into alternative models of dark energy beyond a cosmological constant.

03.09.2023 20:23 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 3    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

LambdaCDM is essentially the minimal working description of cosmology. It can predict the statistics of the CMB with great precision, as well as explain observed expansion and densities. However, it is by design incomplete as it does not try to explain what CDM (or Lambda) actually is, fundamentally

03.09.2023 19:53 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 4    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Lived in:
๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ฐ๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ด๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช

Visited:
๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ท๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ฏ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฟ๐Ÿ‡ญ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ป๐Ÿ‡ฆ

Transferred through:
๐Ÿ‡ถ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ญ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฌ

02.09.2023 13:05 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
The Modulbau Physik building at RWTH Aachen.

The Modulbau Physik building at RWTH Aachen.

After leaving Sydney, it's time to start the next chapter of my life. This time in Germany as a postdoc with RWTH Aachen and KIT.
Still using cosmology to learn more about the fundamentals of our universe. ๐Ÿ”ญ

02.09.2023 11:05 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 8    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

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