Matt Farr

Wake Up (RATM) - 10/10
Wake Up (Arcade Fire) - 10/10

New arrival 👀📖

CamPoS (Cambridge Philosophy of Science seminar series) is now on Bluesky! Please see our upcoming talks here: www.hps.cam.ac.uk/news-events/...

Yes. Exactly — the infinite loops weren’t fun.

People write their horror stories about accidentally clicking “reply all.” But I once set up an ‘out of office’ message that somehow went out in response *to every email I’d ever received*.

A Thermometer for Measuring Quantumness | Quanta Magazine “Anomalous” heat flow, which at first appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics, gives physicists a way to detect quantum entanglement without destroying it.

Sunday night reading: why the Second Law of Thermodynamics is not quite what you probably learned. With quantum systems there's an extra bit that can mess with and even reverse heat flow. And we can use that to detect "quantumness".
www.quantamagazine.org/a-thermomete...

James Webb images were made to look beautiful | Milena Ivanova The recent images from the James Webb Telescope were deliberately made to look beautiful by NASA. The telescope itself can’t even detect visible light – the colours of the images were chosen by the as...

What does beauty have to do with science? | https://bit.ly/4gm1LDm

Professor Milena Ivanova argues that science does in fact use beauty to trigger feelings of awe and wonder, but beauty can also be a guide to scientific discovery.

#philsci 🧪

Cartoon of a man asking a receptionist for directions to Mr Escher's office. The receptionist replies ""Up the stairs. Keep turning right."

www.worldofmoose.com/products/mr-...

Photograph showing the construction of Cambridge University Library in 1933. We see the partially completed front elevation of the building. Some of the metal girders of the building are still visible.

#OnThisDay 100 years ago, plans for a new University Library in Cambridge were gaining traction.

By 2 October 1925, a site had been acquired and architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott RA had begun his sketches and costings.

As this picture shows, by 1933, construction was underway!
(Cam.a.934.2)

I like the idea of coffee at the hairdressers, but invariably it ends up hair-infused. #thoughtfortheday

People arm in arm while drinking coffee and holding papers, with text: Why scientists should take more coffee breaks.

Here's a reminder on #InternationalCoffeeDay: It's OK to take a (coffee) break. ☕

"It’s ... helpful to have a venue to share the day-to-day ups and downs of life as a grad student," a #PhD student wrote in this 2019 #ScienceWorkingLife. https://scim.ag/4nvLTBb

Milena Ivanova & Aisha Sobey, Critical Epistemologies of AI Healthcare Apps - PhilPapers AI-powered healthcare promises to solve current problems, offering more efficient, unbiased and accurate care to users. This chapter seeks to ground the promises of AI discourses within concerns of ep...

New paper with my colleague Aisha Sobey on Critical Epistemologies of AI Healthcare Apps.

philpapers.org/rec/IVACEO

Matt Farr, Time in Classical Physics - PhilPapers Time plays an ambiguous role in classical physics. On the one hand, classical physics allows for a picture of time largely fitting with common-sense views about time, as one-dimensional, and flowing ....

I wrote a little thing about time in classical physics, thoughtfully titled 'Time in Classical Physics'. Forthcoming in Nina Emery's 'Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Time'.

A black and white photo of Albert Einstein, around age 25, sitting at a desk. He is a wearing a flannel suit and resting his right arm on the desk. Einstein is looking to the left of the photographer in this posed photo.

The first paragraph of the paper, in German. Translated to English is reads: It is known that Maxwell's electrodynamics—as usually understood at the present time—when applied to moving bodies, leads to asymmetries which do not appear to be inherent in the phenomena. Take, for example, the reciprocal electrodynamic action of a magnet and a conductor. The observable phenomenon here depends only on the relative motion of the conductor and the magnet, whereas the customary view draws a sharp distinction between the two cases in which either the one or the other of these bodies is in motion. For if the magnet is in motion and the conductor at rest, there arises in the neighbourhood of the magnet an electric field with a certain definite energy, producing a current at the places where parts of the conductor are situated. But if the magnet is stationary and the conductor in motion, no electric field arises in the neighbourhood of the magnet...

Happy 120th birthday, special relativity!

Albert Einstein introduced special relativity in the paper "On The Electrodynamics Of Moving Bodies," published in Annalen der Physik #OTD in 1905. 🧪 ⚛️ 🔭

Manuscript: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
English: www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einst...

Turns out the ‘magic’ coffee in the coffee shop just has an extra shot of espresso. And now my hand is trembling somewhat. 😵‍💫

This makes it look like I’m objecting to your joke.

Paracetamol? 🙄

Noted.

You can also be a competent academic
and occasionally finish first in the 40-45 category in the local ParkRun. 🫣

Amazing run by Cambridge alumnus Amy Hunt for a silver medal in the 200m at the World Athletics Championships.

Google's "AI mode" is basically a means for paraphrasing without assigning credit to the source. In niche areas (e.g. philosophy of science) the sources used are so narrow that it as good as guarantees that people who use it in the writing process will end up plagiarising the work of others.

Sat on deleting this particular account far too long.

The new TOC from academia dot edu. By creating an Account with Academia.edu, you grant us a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license, permission, and consent for Academia.edu to use your Member Content and your personal information (including, but not limited to, your name, voice, signature, photograph, likeness, city, institutional affiliations, citations, mentions, publications, and areas of interest) in any manner, including for the purpose of advertising, selling, or soliciting the use or purchase of Academia.edu's Services.

If you’re on academia dot edu, let me suggest that you strongly consider deleting your account.

The Marathon at the World Athletics Championships had both a false start and a photo finish.

It was a smart move for Radiohead to wait for all the Oasis fans to spend their annual gig money before announcing their shows.

When you use your own razor beyond necessity.

I have questions.

Trinity looking nice for a return to work.

Matt's marathon in memory of Mum (for Macmillan) Help Matt Farr raise money to support Macmillan Caring Locally

I'll be running the London Marathon in April in memory of our recently departed and much loved mum, fundraising for the Macmillan Caring Locally, a charity that provides palliative care for terminal illnesses. You can read more at the link.

www.justgiving.com/page/matt-fa...

You’ll have to excuse me…