Basabendu Barman

Bengali;he/him;JRF @iiserkol;PhD @IITGuwahati;postdoc @UANTONIONARINO& prof @SRMUAP;blog:

[Jacob Coxon @hilbertspaess]

I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

@Physicla_ Keep doing what you're good at @Physicla_ and I, for sure, know that Physics is your forte. The world needs bright minds like you. No matter wht happens, never stop chasing your dreams. U can reach out to me if any sort of help is needed. All the very best.

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

Looking at the trend, there are two kinds of people who get faculty positions in the top-tier Indian institutes:

1) Prolific with strong connections
2) Below-average with strong connections

#academics

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

@Physicla_ Many congrats!

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

JCAP rejected our paper over a missing factor of 1/6​. Truly, my faith in peer review is restored (also, I'm crying inside). #academia

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

At conferences, I often notice ppl from "premier" institutes staying within tight circles and being reluctant to engage with others. Given that science is fundamentally a collective enterprise, where does this sense of exclusivity come from?

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

@Sunburn_Suraj The entire institute is infested with horrible people (from personal experience)

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

Hi @vfsglobalcare @VFSGlobal , I need some info about Japan visa application from India, whom should I contact in this regard? Thank you in advance.

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

Job alert!
#academia #AcademicTwitter

[Joydeep Chakrabortty @jd_iitk]

I have a postdoctoral position for one year. Anyone who has expertise (working knowledge) in formal aspects of QFT may write to me if interested.

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

@Kaju_Nut guy from India?

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

Job alert! #academia #AcademicTwitter #AcademicChatter

[Joydeep Chakrabortty @jd_iitk]

We have a few positions for an Institute Postdoctoral position at the HEP group. Feel free to apply through this portal:

https://t.co/FgAlpX3t6N

[Nirmalya Kajuri @Kaju_Nut]

In 1934, Enrico Fermi's paper on a theory of beta decay was rejected by Nature for lacking immediate experimental relevance -- "speculations too remote from reality to be of interest to the reader." This paper that introduced what is now known as Fermi interaction.

In 1964, Peter Higgs' paper on spontaneous symmetry breaking in gauge theories was initially rejected for having "no obvious physical relevance". The paper introduced what is now known as Higgs mechanism.

It can be difficult to tell a super important breakthrough from useless speculation ahead of time.

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

Are they really referring to the classic classical mechanics textbook? #StrangerThings5

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

and most of these papers will be published in PRL (more like PROFL)

[Will Kinney @WKCosmo]

I emailed a colleague who is a neutrino expert for an opinion. I won't say who it was, but this was the response:

"They’ve killed—for the nth time—the existence of a sterile neutrino.

Will this be the end of the sterile-neutrino saga? Of course not.

Just wait. A fresh wave of papers with ever more sophisticated models will
emerge, featuring steriles whose masses or mixing angles vary with energy,
humidity, or even the political climate—carefully tuned so you can explain +
everything: LSND, MiniBooNE, and MicroBooNE, all at once.

…reminding us that the sterile neutrino is less a particle and more a tradition
of the field."

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

Weekend wisdom from https://t.co/Gkl4gZlMIm

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

@Kaju_Nut Bet it can't beat this :P

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

@martinmbauer QFT by Ashoke Sen

https://t.co/zHnU7hOTmL

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

@martinmbauer Which book is this from? I tried searching but seems there is no concrete source :/

[Nirmalya Kajuri @Kaju_Nut]

Job situation in Indian theoretical high energy physics is worse than ever.

Most institutions are not interested in theorists because there’s not much grants in theory. Most IITs/IISERs consider 2 high energy theorists to be more than enough.

The worst part is that for the few available positions, there is a strong preference for students of Indian big shots. Stellar candidates are being rejected unless they have a local big shot to really push their case. Almost no one’s looking at the work. Even very strong letters from some of the top physicists in the WORLD isn’t cutting it.

For the first time we are set to lose almost an entire gen of high energy theorists to finance/ML.

This is not to discourage young physicists but to inform you of the reality.

[Basabendu Barman @BasabenduB]

@abhijitsaha110 The kind of ppl academia (HEP at least) is infested with, it is a loss for the community that u left. But at the same time I would say ur lucky that you no longer hv to deal with sheer hypocrisy and nepotism. You'll xcel whrevr u go. I learnt a lot from you.