David Kordahl

Physicist, parent. Columnist @3QD. Contact: [email protected].

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

Today, I published a new piece about Thomas Kuhn with @3QD. The occasion of this essay was the new collection of unpublished writings out last November from @UChicagoPress, which includes drafts from Kuhn's incomplete final book. (1/4) https://t.co/p7SkyA1dpu

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

@sethharpesq Great book about what can happen if you just do stuff and never ever ever stop to think

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

7yo (thoughtfully, after howling and snorting for a while): "I mastered the wolf and the pig sounds, but never the frog"

[Rachel @tolstoybb]

"create an image of what the world would look like if I were in charge, based on my tweets"

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

Tried to convince the 10yo that we should adopt this thing as a pet and she was not interested

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

Since I too moved to Louisiana on purpose, I don't think it would be inappropriate to call me the "Lana del Rey of physics professors"

[Pop Crave @PopCrave]

Lana Del Rey’s husband Jeremy Dufrene shares photos in honor of their second wedding anniversary.

[Condensed Matter Theory Center @condensed_the]

An extremely instructive development in the use of AI in theoretical physics just emerged from the University of Chicago, thanks to Dam Son-- everybody and anybody seriously interested in theoretical physics should read this and ponder its implications
https://t.co/toFnUyioDY

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

@meghan_daum Since becoming a parent, I think about his film Photographic Memory a lot. I wasn't able to decide if he really couldn't see how troubled his kid was, or if the disconnect between his upbeat narration and the problems that are obvious in most of the footage was sort of the point.

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

My 1yo son is using some language confidently but not in usual ways

Me: "Hey buddy you want uppies? Want me to carry you?"

1yo (shaking head): "no"

Me: "You sure? You're looking tired"

1yo (raising arms): "nooo!"

In this example "no" did indeed mean "yes"

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

Good haul from Centenary Book Bazaar yesterday. Under $70 for a wagonfull! A little distressing to see the vultures descend to swoop up boxes for online resale, though I suppose if it's a fundraiser for the college it's not really hurting us.

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

MICROGRIT

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

Since my children started home-schooling, I'm continually surprised by the things I find when I come home from work. Yesterday my 7yo daughter left a shoe partly filled with spaghetti in the bathroom sink.

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

I'm preparing to teach Optics next semester, and I love finding a treasure trove like this - nice videos showing basically all the standard physical optics effects: https://t.co/JrByTUzteb

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

@brksstrrtt Not at all, the normal thing is to pull your phone under your shirt and tuck your head in to make a nice little privacy tent

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

Tried out the "speech" version of ChatGPT this afternoon and was surprised at how much dumber it seemed than the text-only version. The text-only version can usually fake having read the books I mention by pulling web info. Possibly something needs to be tweaked in settings.

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

@eigenron I like this old book as an intro, available cheap used. Lots of nice discussions of experiments (including the best I know of for the OG Stern-Gerlach, which they recreated and photographed). More of a "waves first" treatment.

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

Challenge: spot the toddler

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

@justinboldaji Schrader regularly commits the crime of being interesting and curious

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

These are the rookie numbers you get when you're just accidentally making kittens with too many toes https://t.co/GvakbUYw6u

[Peter Warwick Morgan @PeterMorganQF]

@DavidKordahl + My current hypothesis is that it's only if my prompts are working as hard for another person's intentions as for mine that there's a chance they will find the resulting AI response interesting.
Your speaker's student's song seems a useful warning, however he intended it.

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

@PeterMorganQF The odd thing is that I don't think he would have seen himself as an enthusiast. I suppose we each have a different "this far but no farther" limit to tolerance.

[David Kordahl @DavidKordahl]

Today at the "AI in education" workshop organized for our annual Faculty Institute a guy told us about all the things he had encouraged his students to do with AI. It ended with him playing a "song" one of his students had "written" as we sat there together, mutely suffering.