Christopher S. Baird
@christophersbaird.bsky.social
Associate Professor of Physics at West Texas A&M University. Author of the book, "The Top 50 Science Questions with Surprising Answers." Author of the website, "Science Questions with Surprising Answers." Researching quantum devices, lasers, and terahertz.
My typical response to such people is: I absolutely do teach on Fridays, just not in a classroom. I teach my student research assistants while we do research together and build presentations and papers together, which is way more effective teaching at the advanced level than classroom lectures.
Non-academic family: “Oh, so you don’t work on Friday.”
Me: “I do not have classes on Friday.”
Them: “Oh, so you don’t work on Friday.”
Me: “I do not teach on Friday.”
Friday:
Me: “I do not have classes on Friday.”
Them: “Oh, so you don’t work on Friday.”
Me: “I do not teach on Friday.”
Friday:
November 14, 2025 at 6:56 PM
My typical response to such people is: I absolutely do teach on Fridays, just not in a classroom. I teach my student research assistants while we do research together and build presentations and papers together, which is way more effective teaching at the advanced level than classroom lectures.
To prepare my children for adult life, I impose a candy tax on their Halloween candy. It's a win-win situation! I get to eat some of their candy and they get to prepare to be tax-paying adults. (I seriously do this.)
Parents be sure to check your kids’ candy before they eat any!! There might be good stuff in there.
October 31, 2025 at 6:21 PM
To prepare my children for adult life, I impose a candy tax on their Halloween candy. It's a win-win situation! I get to eat some of their candy and they get to prepare to be tax-paying adults. (I seriously do this.)
Reposted by Christopher S. Baird
Well that was a first. I regularly receive science questions and comments from my readers that I enjoy answering and responding to.
For the first time, an intelligent-sounding person emailed me telling me that my article was wrong because he asked Gemini and Gemini gave a different answer. 🤦
For the first time, an intelligent-sounding person emailed me telling me that my article was wrong because he asked Gemini and Gemini gave a different answer. 🤦
October 17, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Well that was a first. I regularly receive science questions and comments from my readers that I enjoy answering and responding to.
For the first time, an intelligent-sounding person emailed me telling me that my article was wrong because he asked Gemini and Gemini gave a different answer. 🤦
For the first time, an intelligent-sounding person emailed me telling me that my article was wrong because he asked Gemini and Gemini gave a different answer. 🤦
Yes! And I'll add that professors also exist to motivate and inspire students. Articles like this assume that all college students are 100% self-motivated to do all the hard work required to learn. A professor's genuine passion for a subject is contagious in a way that a computer never can be.
If you think that professors exist as repositories of knowledge that students ask for answers, you’re missing the entire point of a college education.
We’re here to teach students how to do research, how to analyze and argue, how to think for themselves — how to find the answers on their own.
We’re here to teach students how to do research, how to analyze and argue, how to think for themselves — how to find the answers on their own.
Wow. Just wow.
"Students pay premium prices for information that AI now delivers instantly and for free. A business student can ask ChatGPT to explain supply chain optimization or generate market analysis in seconds. The traditional lecture-and-test model faces its Blockbuster moment."
"Students pay premium prices for information that AI now delivers instantly and for free. A business student can ask ChatGPT to explain supply chain optimization or generate market analysis in seconds. The traditional lecture-and-test model faces its Blockbuster moment."
October 16, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Yes! And I'll add that professors also exist to motivate and inspire students. Articles like this assume that all college students are 100% self-motivated to do all the hard work required to learn. A professor's genuine passion for a subject is contagious in a way that a computer never can be.
Reposted by Christopher S. Baird
Wenn ChatGPT das Mathe-Paper schreibt 😅 (eigentlich gar kein lustiges Paper: www.ams.org/journals/not...)
September 25, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Wenn ChatGPT das Mathe-Paper schreibt 😅 (eigentlich gar kein lustiges Paper: www.ams.org/journals/not...)
Reposted by Christopher S. Baird
Hours of daylight throughout the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
September 22, 2025 at 7:10 PM
Hours of daylight throughout the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
Reposted by Christopher S. Baird
The entirety of Roy Kerr's paper solving the Einstein equations for a spinning black hole in case anyone wondered what it looks like. In terms of impact per line this paper has to be one of the all-time top 10.
September 17, 2025 at 2:10 AM
The entirety of Roy Kerr's paper solving the Einstein equations for a spinning black hole in case anyone wondered what it looks like. In terms of impact per line this paper has to be one of the all-time top 10.
I just got word that the faculty senate of my university is now dissolved and no longer exists, in compliance with the new Texas law. Yikes! I thought my university would somehow find a loophole, or an exemption, but it's official. It's a sad day for shared governance and checks and balances.
September 4, 2025 at 8:32 PM
I just got word that the faculty senate of my university is now dissolved and no longer exists, in compliance with the new Texas law. Yikes! I thought my university would somehow find a loophole, or an exemption, but it's official. It's a sad day for shared governance and checks and balances.
Along these lines, I googled my own book to find reviews and the AI Overview caught my eye. Literally half of what it said about my book is not in my book at all. If it gets it so wrong for a subject I know about, it's probably getting it so wrong on everything!
Y'all, based on what I've seen of the "AI Overview" of my own papers, please do not trust it. Go click on the actual link like you used to.
Yes, this. It is difficult to overstate how much the very simple AI Overview at the top of Google Search will change everything we know about how the web works. Google will no longer provide a connecting thread, instead they're building their own walled garden.
July 3, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Along these lines, I googled my own book to find reviews and the AI Overview caught my eye. Literally half of what it said about my book is not in my book at all. If it gets it so wrong for a subject I know about, it's probably getting it so wrong on everything!
Oh cool! A video that I helped make is now up to 10 million views.
Cool! I provided scientific consulting for this YouTube video (my name is in the credits), and it already has over three million views, a day after being released.
It's a tricky concept to explain, but I tried my best to steer the writers in the right direction.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJZ1...
It's a tricky concept to explain, but I tried my best to steer the writers in the right direction.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJZ1...
Something Strange Happens When You Trust Quantum Mechanics
YouTube video by Veritasium
www.youtube.com
May 12, 2025 at 1:35 AM
Oh cool! A video that I helped make is now up to 10 million views.
I made this chart for a class I teach, showing various electric charge setups. I think that it shows the pattern well. An arbitrary charge configuration can be represented as a combination of these, and often the higher-order multipoles can be approximated to be zero.
#ITeachPhysics
#ITeachPhysics
May 7, 2025 at 4:57 PM
I made this chart for a class I teach, showing various electric charge setups. I think that it shows the pattern well. An arbitrary charge configuration can be represented as a combination of these, and often the higher-order multipoles can be approximated to be zero.
#ITeachPhysics
#ITeachPhysics
!["Where there is one common all-overriding end, there is no room for any general morals or rules... Where a few specific ends dominate the whole of [a totalitarian] society, it is inevitable that occasionally cruelty will become a duty; that acts which revolt all our feeling, such as the shooting of hostages or the killing of the old or sick, should be treated as mere matters of expediency; that the compulsory uprooting and transportation of hundreds of thousands should become an instrument of policy approved by almost everybody except the victims; or that suggestions like that of a 'conscription of women for breeding purposes' can be seriously contemplated." 1944, F.A. Hayek, Austrian-born British professor and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vxtnapdf4umxdj3zb2adutys/bafkreiglh3zvkbyatawbsw2jqcbfvkcwmps27fnlldps3w5qj3shxm7ha4@jpeg)
There are various meiosis errors that can occur. In the error shown here, since Turner syn. girls rarely survive to birth, there is a greater chance of giving birth to a boy. When you take all errors into account and average, it's unlikely that the girl-boy ration at birth will be exactly 50%-50%.
May 6, 2025 at 3:46 PM
There are various meiosis errors that can occur. In the error shown here, since Turner syn. girls rarely survive to birth, there is a greater chance of giving birth to a boy. When you take all errors into account and average, it's unlikely that the girl-boy ration at birth will be exactly 50%-50%.
It bugs me when people call it AI "hallucinations," because this puts the focus on the AI as if it is an innocent victim of a medical condition. The real problem is that people using the AI are fed false info.
Better terms would therefore be:
• AI lies
• AI fabrications
• AI invented falsehoods
Better terms would therefore be:
• AI lies
• AI fabrications
• AI invented falsehoods
May 5, 2025 at 10:29 PM
It bugs me when people call it AI "hallucinations," because this puts the focus on the AI as if it is an innocent victim of a medical condition. The real problem is that people using the AI are fed false info.
Better terms would therefore be:
• AI lies
• AI fabrications
• AI invented falsehoods
Better terms would therefore be:
• AI lies
• AI fabrications
• AI invented falsehoods
Fresnel lenses are fun to play with if you ever get a chance. As shown in the picture, a Fresnel lens is made by dividing it into sections and removing unneeded material from each section, leading to a thin lens.
You get a lens which seems unusually powerful for its size.
#ITeachPhysics
You get a lens which seems unusually powerful for its size.
#ITeachPhysics
May 5, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Fresnel lenses are fun to play with if you ever get a chance. As shown in the picture, a Fresnel lens is made by dividing it into sections and removing unneeded material from each section, leading to a thin lens.
You get a lens which seems unusually powerful for its size.
#ITeachPhysics
You get a lens which seems unusually powerful for its size.
#ITeachPhysics
!["Everything which might cause doubt [in a totalitarian state] about the wisdom of the government or create discontent will be kept from the people... all will be suppressed. There is consequently no field where the systematic control of information will not be practiced and uniformity of views enforced. This applies even to fields apparently most remote from any political interests and particularly to all the sciences, even the most abstract... Totalitarian control of opinion extends, however, also to subjects which at first seem to have no political significance." 1944, F.A. Hayek, Austrian-born British professor and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vxtnapdf4umxdj3zb2adutys/bafkreihhjnheawmnpit4stcl2m6mt6g2wipdkwerpzr6wrlpur44e2l44a@jpeg)
A good friend of mine learned this the hard way and ended up in the hospital after taking herbal pills containing licorice root for several weeks (supposedly as an energy booster). Herbal pills aren't automatically safe just because they are marketed as natural!
Excessive consumption of genuine licorice (that hasn't been deglycyrrhizinated) causes dangerously high blood pressure and related problems because of a well-understood cascade of processes in the body. It can be found in licorice candy and herbal supplements that contain licorice root.
May 1, 2025 at 10:25 PM
A good friend of mine learned this the hard way and ended up in the hospital after taking herbal pills containing licorice root for several weeks (supposedly as an energy booster). Herbal pills aren't automatically safe just because they are marketed as natural!
Excessive consumption of genuine licorice (that hasn't been deglycyrrhizinated) causes dangerously high blood pressure and related problems because of a well-understood cascade of processes in the body. It can be found in licorice candy and herbal supplements that contain licorice root.
May 1, 2025 at 7:41 PM
Excessive consumption of genuine licorice (that hasn't been deglycyrrhizinated) causes dangerously high blood pressure and related problems because of a well-understood cascade of processes in the body. It can be found in licorice candy and herbal supplements that contain licorice root.
Reposted by Christopher S. Baird
Saying that air is an electrical insulator oversimplifies the matter. Even at low voltages, air can indeed carry an electrical current, but you don't see it and the current is weak. This is why statically charged objects eventually end up uncharged. Their charge flows out into the air #ITeachPhysics
April 21, 2025 at 8:27 PM
Saying that air is an electrical insulator oversimplifies the matter. Even at low voltages, air can indeed carry an electrical current, but you don't see it and the current is weak. This is why statically charged objects eventually end up uncharged. Their charge flows out into the air #ITeachPhysics
To be clear, this does not mean that everyone on this list was native German, Austrian, or Italian. Rather, before Hitler, Germany was the center of mass of physics research. The top minds from around the world came to Germany to get an education and do research, but then had to flee.
I've been reading about the history of physics and have been amazed by how many contributors to physics fled Nazi Germany, Nazi Austria, and Fascist Italy. I had fun making this table to get all the info into one place. #ITeachPhysics
April 7, 2025 at 5:56 PM
To be clear, this does not mean that everyone on this list was native German, Austrian, or Italian. Rather, before Hitler, Germany was the center of mass of physics research. The top minds from around the world came to Germany to get an education and do research, but then had to flee.
Reposted by Christopher S. Baird
I've been reading about the history of physics and have been amazed by how many contributors to physics fled Nazi Germany, Nazi Austria, and Fascist Italy. I had fun making this table to get all the info into one place. #ITeachPhysics
March 28, 2025 at 7:22 PM
I've been reading about the history of physics and have been amazed by how many contributors to physics fled Nazi Germany, Nazi Austria, and Fascist Italy. I had fun making this table to get all the info into one place. #ITeachPhysics