Damian Pope

Quantum physicist, science communicator, educational outreach manager at Perimeter Institute. Any views expressed here are purely personal.

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

Was excited to present @perimeter's Exploring Light with Optics resource at today's TDSB professional development day.

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

@DoltonIssac @Perimeter There are many current technological challenges & problems to solve. But one of the biggest is coming up with new & better ways to produce energy. Eg. fusion, solar etc.

[Sean Jackson @mrjacksondotca]

Sitting in on some teacher PD from Scotland @IOPTeaching with @stuartphysics #welovescottishaccents @DamianPopePI @Perimeter

[Greg Dick @Greg_Dick]

@Perimeter @laura_pankratz teams up with @ictpSA Lucas and some terrific students from ETEC Guaracy Silveira in Sao Paulo, #Brazil to talk about #blackholes

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

@americanbouy Many electrical signals in the brain like brain waves are naturally analog. Any signals that we can measure with our instruments, we could convert into digital signals that could be transmitted elsewhere.

[Department for Science, Innovation and Technology @SciTechgovuk]

Honey, we shrunk @SamGyimah! 🙀🔬⚛️ UK researchers in quantum tech are turning science fiction into reality. Find out more in the latest mind-bending episode of #ScienceSpotlight #IndustrialStrategy

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

@isaitrejo @Perimeter Many equations from physics are used in totally different area like predicting the stock market (stochastic differential equations). But as far as I know Yang Mills theory isn’t used anywhere else, at least yet.

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

@DaveFishPI Not sure of the exact context in the lecture, but the initial NS merger was 130 million ly away. 130 ly away is, of course, past Alpha Centuri. So, maybe not be grav bound.

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

@Warren_Tilston Blazars have been observed since the 1950s. They weren't groundbreaking in the sense of being totally unexpected & totally revolutionary. But they're really cool in teaching more about black holes.

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

@Warren_Tilston Great question! This is a topic of current research. Lots of ideas but some are that the core of a neutron star has lots of quarks. Another is superconducting protons. Experiments underway to tell these theories apart.

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

#pilive Our crack team of PI researchers is on hand to answer your physics questions. Ask away!

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

@Gypsykenny @EGesteau @Perimeter It is *possible* that white holes may help explain a black hole's singularity but, as you know, they're speculative. What we'd probably all like is new physics that doesn't break down at the singularity (like GR does) to figure out what's going on. We need quantum gravity!

[Perimeter Institute @Perimeter]

Download your FREE "All Known Physics" physics poster and hang it where you need a little cosmic inspiration. https://t.co/F5DcHgfIDR

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

@GeorgeCMichas @Perimeter That's a deep question! But I fear it goes beyond my expertise and even science itself. We just don't know. Hard to imagine a connection between these dark things & consciousness as very different. But we're not sure.

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

@americanbouy @EGesteau @Perimeter We mostly measure size of proton by bouncimg things off of it. Physicists call it scattering experiments. We measure size based on how many particles incident on protons get scattered etc. Even though protons are dynamic, their size is fairly constant

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

@rodrigo_univasf @Perimeter I'd invest in both! For the particular problems we know quantum computers are good at (finding new medical drugs, simulating quantum reality), I'd say quantum computers are better. But there are lots of complex systems for which we have no evidence that they're superior.

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

@segundoguerrero The main reason is that dark matter hardly ever interacts with things on Earth. There's lots of it around, we think, but almost all dark matter particles pass right through Earth & out the other side w/o interacting with anything. This makes dark matter VERY hard to detect.

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

@americanbouy @Perimeter Not exactly sure what you mean by the membrane but protons are made of even smaller quarks plus interaction energy between the quarks (gluons). And quarks are made of, well we're not quite sure ...

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

@DrMattB @Perimeter Absolutely. The biggest effect is Einstein's famous E = m c squared, which is part of relativity. Most of the mass of a proton actually comes from energy in interactions between the quarks that make it up. And from Einstein's equation, this energy is equivalent to a mass.

[Damian Pope @DamianPopePI]

@hinsterrr @Perimeter From using stellar models, inc. our understanding of forces (gravity, neutron pressure), scientists know ranges for the masses (1.4 to ~2 solar masses) & radii of pulsars (~10 km). We've been able to measure the masses of few individual pulsars by observing their magnetic fields