Dan Russell (Dr. Batman)

Better plot:

1st results of the Torpedo bat study by Lloyd Smith, @drussell@engr.psu.edu, and me. Measurements done at WSU Sports Science Lab and PSU. Will be presented at ISEA Conference in June. BBCOR, a surrogate for exit velocity, measured for Standard and 2 Torpedo bats via high-speed impact.

The last several times I have been asked to review manuscripts for a journal, I find myself having to play the role of Reviewer #2 => pointing out fatal flaws, potential plagiarism concerns, incorrect statements, insufficient literature cited. Sigh. I'd like to be Reviewer #1 sometime.

Robert Keolian's apparatus for demonstrating how the Basilar membrane works - the von Békésy "place theory of hearing".

Robert M. Keolian, "A demonstration apparatus of the cochlea," J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 101, 1199–1201 (1997).

youtu.be/MV-XbzLPijA?...

Paper 1-cent bill from Hong Kong in the 1970’s

Now that the U.S. is no longer making the 1-cent penny coin, I was reminded of these 1-cent paper bills we used to use in Hong Kong in the 1970’s.

I contacted Beth. AJP doesn't have paper records from 1998, and double blind review process prevents identifying reviewers. My LinkedIn post made its way to the 2nd author faculty advisor of student who plagiarized my work. He emailed me to apologize. Still don't know how they got those plots.

That's the only explanation I can think of. Back in 1998, there was no electronic submission. I mailed 4 paper copies to editor, who kept one and sent 3 out for review. I'm guessing one of the reviewers kept a copy? Was this author a reviewer? (unlikely), but perhaps saw a copy the reviewer had?

Holy plagiarism, Batman!
I just found a 2020 book chapter that plagiarized my data originally submitted (paper copies only!) to the American Journal of Physics in 1998 before the editor asked me to rotate the plots for publication.

How did these authors obtain my original unpublished plots?

Agreed. I also really prefer white for ambient. I wonder if BuVe is available as a color map option in the current version of Mathematica?
I have tried a Pink-White-Green colormap that also seems to work for most color-blind cases:
www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/Dem... (see the comparison at the bottom)

I need to spend more time here on your 🦋 pages looking through your new animations. These look really useful. I really hope you are able to gather your all amazing animations together on a website someday.

yes. I've started using a similar "cividis" color map for many of my animations for similar color-blind accessibility reasons -- but haven't had time to go back and re-create all of my animations that use RWB yet.

scan of two pages from "Wind Waves" by Kinsman showing a full-page footnote that describes several humorous anecdotes about the Bernoulli family history related to mathematics and fluid dynamics theory.

I've always been a huge fan of the extensive footnotes in Allan Pierce's "ACOUSTICS" textbook . . . but I've found a new favorite: "Wind Waves" by Blair Kinsman. His writing style is delightfully refreshing for a textbook, but this full-page footnote on the Bernoulli family history is amazing!

Those are awesome! I did the same thing (showing the oscillation paths and elliptical motion) for a couple of "particles" in the animations I created for my website in 2014:
www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/Dem...

I really like the RWB coloring addition to the "Sparrowgram" particle motion on yours.

YouTube video by Dan Russell ACS 502 Sound Waves In Fluids Fall 2025 at Penn State

Time for another fun movie trailer to entice interest in the first-year graduate course in Acoustics that I'll be teaching for the Graduate Program in Acoustics at Penn State in the Fall 2025 semester. Simultaneously offered online through our distance education program!
youtu.be/fKPA5HL76Ps?...

photo of Dan Russell (white male, approximately 30 years old, blond hair and glasses, wearing a red shirt) sitting to the right of a computer monitor.

photo of Dan Russell (white male, approximately 55 years old, gray hair, beard, and glasses, wearing a checkered shirt) standing to the left of a computer monitor.

30 years of making animations . . . I'm updating HTML code for my Acoustics and Vibration Animations website (for WCAG accessibility and HTML5) and found an archive of my original website from 25 years ago with a photo of me in my office at Kettering University.
www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/demos.html

Yessir.

Thanks! I learned that technique from Tom Rossing in 1990 while I was working on my MS with him.

Brand new video demonstration . . . Standing Waves inside a Cylindrical Cavity. Finding nodal surfaces for acoustic standing wave mode shapes inside a cylinder with "rigid" walls -- a plastic CD container. #iteachphysics #acoustics

youtu.be/-4IqtGhWe2U?... via @YouTube

Except that this thesis explored computer models of hollow aluminum bats that were rigidly clamped at the handle which is completely wrong. So the results of her models are pretty much useless for predicting handle vibration in actual bats or sweet spot location.

The Physics of the Torpedo Bat What can physics tell us about the torpedo bats?

Really good preliminary summary of what we know so far about torpedo bats by my fellow bat researcher @pobguy.bsky.social
blogs.fangraphs.com/the-physics-...

My favorite way to spend a quiet Sunday evening.

How can a person with “zero education” ever learn to ask the right questions? Education in the relevant field is what helps you know the right questions to ask.

Don’t know. I’m a non-tenure track teaching faculty so I don’t have overhead return.
Turns out the architect firm demanded the doors be replace and the contracted supplied is eating the cost. Still seems like an awful waste to me. Doors are going to be discarded to trash.

Photo of my wood office door

Close up of my office door showing the ugly wood knots that require the door to be replaced.

What a stupid waste of money. @PSUEngineering is replacing many dozens of doors in our 6 month old new building because the wood veneer on some doors has some unsightly wood knots. Here’s my office door (with ugly knots) that is slated for replacement. What a stupid waste of $$.

Where did you get that amazing birdfeeder pole?

📌

So during a 5-minute "lightning round" #ASA187 session this morning, I complained that someone else's 5-minute talk lasted 12 minutes.

Well, this afternoon I contributed to a 5-minute lightning round session.

Any guesses as to how long my own "5-minute" talk lasted? 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♀️🤦

Thank you for letting me know you find them useful!

Listening to the keynote address for #ASA187 . . . humorous inverse correlation => larger larynx (deeper + louder vocal production) in howler monkeys correlates to smaller testicles. Bigger balls means less powerful and higher sounding howl.

It is a great app! I use it with my undergrad acoustics course - mostly because it looks and behaves the same on both iOS and Android devices. There are some things I wish it did better, but overall I have gotten a fair amount of use out of it. Simple and functional is good.