Tom Rivlin

@thequantom

Postdoc researcher at TU Wien's Atominstitut in the QuIT Physics group: quitphysics.info/tom-rivlin (originally from London, previously based at Weizmann, UCL, Imperial); freelance science writer who writes regularly for SciShow: bit.ly/tomrivlinscishowscripts (also written for PBS Space Time, Chalkdust magazine). He/him

580 posts

Posts

Very cool news to share: I've written an article for the UK's New Scientist magazine about the research I've contributed to! Check it out here, or at all good newsagents in the UK this weekend (conventional methods to avoid online paywalls will work just fine if one feels obliged to ARCHIVE what this IS)

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26134762-400-a-bold-new-take-on-quantum-theory-could-reveal-how-reality-emerges/

The Nobel Prize in Physics goes to someone formerly associated with my university, TU Wien, for the second year in a row! Ferenc Krausz did some of the Nobel-winning work on attosecond experiments at TU Wien in 2001

I wrote a thing! This is a blog post on the Quantum Frontiers blog about the research that I'm working on! It's my first time writing a popular science article in a long time, outside of the scripts I write. It was interesting trying to translate the skills I've been improving -- writing scripts that are meant to be listened to read aloud -- to writing something just meant to be read. I think it came out well. I suppose that unlike my SciShow stuff, this wasn't really intended for the most general audience, it assumes some knowledge of quantum theory, as its audience is mainly other physicists. But the idea is very interesting and it is directly what I work on! https://quantumfrontiers.com/2023/09/10/can-thermodynamics-resolve-the-measurement-problem/

One of the coolest things I've achieved in the last few years is that I've become a regular contributor for SciShow, the popular science YouTube channel. I've written about one script a month for them for the past five years, on a huge variety of topics, from physics and maths, to computer science and even some biology... This week a script I worked on came out:

This particular episode was sponsored and commissioned by the Kavli Foundation, a science-funding organisation that sponsors an annual prize in nanoscience. They wanted SciShow to write a script about on of the prize's previous recipients, and so I got to work researching the life of one Mildred Dresselhaus.

It was really fun to research! She did a lot of cool things in her career, accomplished a lot of things, but it was tough to find a neat narrative through-line to summarise her whole career for a <10 min video on YouTube. It was a fun challenge, on top of the usual challenges in scripts like this with e.g. "explain what a phonon is in a few dozen words". I think the final result came out really well, so do check it out!

#Youtube

About nine years ago, I joined Tumblr to follow some friends on here. At the time I was a physics undergrad and was really passionate about maths, so I decided to make my blog maths themed. I picked the name naturalblogarithms because it sounded cool, and chose as my icon my favourite equation, Boltzmann's definition of entropy:

Why this one? Partly because it's a fascinating, elegant bit of physics, but also because it has a cool story behind it: the photo is of the gravestone of Ludwig Boltzmann in Vienna, where his equation is inscribed.

A lot has changed in the nine years since then...

But little did I know back then that eventually I would end up moving to Vienna, and working on research directly related to Boltzmann's famous equation! It's been a wild ride and a dream come true.

I haven't been active on Tumblr in a very long time (though I have been lurking), but with the slow-motion-car-crash demise of a certain blue bird app, I figured it might be worth becoming a bit more of a regular here. At the very least, this is a social media platform that has a reverse-chronological feed of people you follow as the default...

So... hi everyone! My name is Tom, I'm a scientist and freelance science writer, and I'm glad to be back 😁

curiosamathematica

Today’s date is a special number! It’s both a palindromic number and an ambigram, meaning that if you read it from right to left, or upside down, you read the same number as the original.

US citizens will need to have a little more patience, and can mark December 2nd in their calendar.

lthmath

Happy New Year! Have an incredible 2021!! 🎉🎉⭐⭐

Thank you for all your support and kind words in 2020. You have helped more than you can imagine! 😘 Keep up your love for mathematics 😉 https://www.instagram.com/p/CJdjezjjz_a/?igshid=imawyjrgwnaw

mathprofessorquotes

Student: What class should I take next semester?

Computer Science Professor: Well, that really depends on your arguments and parameters.

curiosamathematica

Happy π-day!

lesbianchemicalplant

mathani

Windmill, a process: start with a suitable line through some point. Rotate the line clockwise around the pivot until it contains another point, which now takes over as the new pivot. This process loops and visits all points infinitely often.

Via 3Blue1Brown who is a generous YouTube educator and a terrific math animation engineer. My gif lacks his clickety-clacks, among other things.

curiosamathematica

I can definitely recommend the video! The problem (”When you have a finite number of points, no three of which are collinear, can you always find a line such that this windmill process gets in a loop?”) is surprisingly tricky and yet there is a satisfying elementary solution.