Robert Fisher
@fisherastro.bsky.social
Caltech-UC Berkeley-LLNL-Chicago-UMass Dartmouth. Sabbatical 23-24 @ Institute for Advanced Studies and Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies. American & Italian Theoretical and Computational Astrophysicist. Professor. He/him/his.
Pinned
Exciting to see so many new folks here. I’m a computational astrophysicist working to understand how dead cinders of stars can blow up and light up the sky in a last hurrah. We use big computers. (Figure below courtesy of current PhD student Vrutant Mehta and collaborator Ruediger Pakmor.)
I have been experimenting with large language models to "collaboratively" write code to illustrate key physical concepts for my junior-level mechanics class for physics majors. It did a very nice job in generating an animation of the "tennis racket theorem."
November 3, 2025 at 8:27 PM
I have been experimenting with large language models to "collaboratively" write code to illustrate key physical concepts for my junior-level mechanics class for physics majors. It did a very nice job in generating an animation of the "tennis racket theorem."
We're hiring a teaching physics professor! Our campus feels like a liberal arts sized college within a research university. Our current teaching faculty teach first year to graduate level courses and mentor undergraduate and graduate research students. careers.umassd.edu/en-us/job/52...
Details - Assistant/Associate Teaching Professor - Physics
Discover exciting career opportunities at UMass Dartmouth. Join our diverse team and make a difference. Explore job openings now at UMassD!
careers.umassd.edu
October 28, 2025 at 4:47 PM
We're hiring a teaching physics professor! Our campus feels like a liberal arts sized college within a research university. Our current teaching faculty teach first year to graduate level courses and mentor undergraduate and graduate research students. careers.umassd.edu/en-us/job/52...
Reposted by Robert Fisher
I noticed Google search is no longer reliable for quick unit conversions & calculations.
So I built a simple online calculator
Give it a spin: pmocz.github.io/online-unit-...
So I built a simple online calculator
Give it a spin: pmocz.github.io/online-unit-...
September 14, 2025 at 4:16 PM
I noticed Google search is no longer reliable for quick unit conversions & calculations.
So I built a simple online calculator
Give it a spin: pmocz.github.io/online-unit-...
So I built a simple online calculator
Give it a spin: pmocz.github.io/online-unit-...
Generative AI is rapidly progressing and threatens to inundate us. A new paper (including my old Caltech classmate Serge Belognie) utilizes noise-encoded illumination to “watermark” live video. It offers some hope for those concerned for team reality. arxiv.org/abs/2507.23002 h/t @truesciphi.org
Noise-Coded Illumination for Forensic and Photometric Video Analysis
The proliferation of advanced tools for manipulating video has led to an arms race, pitting those who wish to sow disinformation against those who want to detect and expose it. Unfortunately, time fav...
arxiv.org
August 18, 2025 at 4:14 AM
Generative AI is rapidly progressing and threatens to inundate us. A new paper (including my old Caltech classmate Serge Belognie) utilizes noise-encoded illumination to “watermark” live video. It offers some hope for those concerned for team reality. arxiv.org/abs/2507.23002 h/t @truesciphi.org
Reposted by Robert Fisher
📣📣 BOOK NEWS 📣📣
I'm excited to share the cover and release date of Book #2, #EdgeOfSpaceTime, which is now available for PREORDER!!
You can order from ANY bookstore, including your local indie!
More details on preordering here:
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746817...
What's the book about? 🧵
I'm excited to share the cover and release date of Book #2, #EdgeOfSpaceTime, which is now available for PREORDER!!
You can order from ANY bookstore, including your local indie!
More details on preordering here:
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746817...
What's the book about? 🧵
![[neon rainbow pattern background]
THE EDGE OF SPACE-TIME
The universe reimagined -- through pop culture, poetry, and theoretical physics.
From the award-winning author of The Disordered Cosmos
image of the cover of the book which features circular artwork in the center, one half of it a black and white pattern and the other half a neon rainbow pattern
PREORDER NOW Coming 4/7/26
image of the Pantheon logo](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:3le7dvxqc2rhvyswiida2cgf/bafkreidgvaf7urf7fyxvd7k3ocfcnpkiz7gjhupwaexen5fqodefyqphze@jpeg)
July 28, 2025 at 2:05 PM
📣📣 BOOK NEWS 📣📣
I'm excited to share the cover and release date of Book #2, #EdgeOfSpaceTime, which is now available for PREORDER!!
You can order from ANY bookstore, including your local indie!
More details on preordering here:
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746817...
What's the book about? 🧵
I'm excited to share the cover and release date of Book #2, #EdgeOfSpaceTime, which is now available for PREORDER!!
You can order from ANY bookstore, including your local indie!
More details on preordering here:
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746817...
What's the book about? 🧵
It's always great to see the successes of former students. Postdoc Chris Byrohl @cbyrohl.bsky.social, whom I've known he was an undergraduate, published an amazing paper this week on his new GPU accelerated Ly-α radiative transfer code THOR Hugely impressive results! arxiv.org/abs/2507.11603
July 27, 2025 at 6:31 PM
It's always great to see the successes of former students. Postdoc Chris Byrohl @cbyrohl.bsky.social, whom I've known he was an undergraduate, published an amazing paper this week on his new GPU accelerated Ly-α radiative transfer code THOR Hugely impressive results! arxiv.org/abs/2507.11603
Experimenting with the @anthropic.com Claude Code command line beta. In some ways, it is a natural extension of the familiar chat LLM interface. In others, it offers a brief glimpse of more agentic AIs to come -- building and running code and analyzing results largely on its own.
May 4, 2025 at 4:11 AM
Experimenting with the @anthropic.com Claude Code command line beta. In some ways, it is a natural extension of the familiar chat LLM interface. In others, it offers a brief glimpse of more agentic AIs to come -- building and running code and analyzing results largely on its own.
Reposted by Robert Fisher
Really cool opportunity for advanced grad students and postdocs to learn about and discuss multi-messenger astrophysics in beautiful Santa Cruz! (featuring yours truly)
April 15, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Really cool opportunity for advanced grad students and postdocs to learn about and discuss multi-messenger astrophysics in beautiful Santa Cruz! (featuring yours truly)
My research group alumna, Mckenzie Ferrari has made her debut contribution to the astronomy reader's digest Astrobites! In her engaging review, Mckenzie dives into a paper exploring the origins of astronomical candles that shine a bit too brightly. aasnova.org/2025/04/08/s... 🔭🧪
Shedding Light on Candles That Burn a Bit Too Bright
Astrobites reports on how standard candles might not be quite as standard as previously thought, and how a particular type of supernova is making a name for itself.
aasnova.org
April 8, 2025 at 4:38 PM
My research group alumna, Mckenzie Ferrari has made her debut contribution to the astronomy reader's digest Astrobites! In her engaging review, Mckenzie dives into a paper exploring the origins of astronomical candles that shine a bit too brightly. aasnova.org/2025/04/08/s... 🔭🧪
The ESA Gaia mission mapped out the positions and velocities of over a billion stars in our galaxy and led directly to dozens of breakthrough investigations in stellar astrophysics. Godspeed.
I'm not sure I'm emotionally prepared to say goodbye to Gaia. This video, shared by @esa.int, is the spacecraft fading from view for the final time. It's still alive, but will be switched off on Thursday. 🔭 www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NGh...
Final goodbye to Gaia from China
YouTube video by ESA Gaia Mission
www.youtube.com
March 24, 2025 at 12:53 PM
The ESA Gaia mission mapped out the positions and velocities of over a billion stars in our galaxy and led directly to dozens of breakthrough investigations in stellar astrophysics. Godspeed.
Kramers and Holst (1923) captures the brief "old quantum mechanics" of Bohr and Sommerfeld in beautiful illustrations. archive.org/details/atom... Ht/Paul Prudence
March 2, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Kramers and Holst (1923) captures the brief "old quantum mechanics" of Bohr and Sommerfeld in beautiful illustrations. archive.org/details/atom... Ht/Paul Prudence
I’ve written a short Docker file to easily enable anyone to run Blondin & Tonry’s SuperNova IDentification (SNID) code on almost any platform. (1/2)
December 23, 2024 at 1:58 AM
I’ve written a short Docker file to easily enable anyone to run Blondin & Tonry’s SuperNova IDentification (SNID) code on almost any platform. (1/2)
Reposted by Robert Fisher
Periodic reminder that the sun isn’t going to explode. It will slowly ploof out and completely wreck the inner solar system in ~5 billion years but a ploof is very different from a boom. The sun (as crazy as this seems when you think about how big the sun is) is too small to go supernova
December 10, 2024 at 4:16 AM
Periodic reminder that the sun isn’t going to explode. It will slowly ploof out and completely wreck the inner solar system in ~5 billion years but a ploof is very different from a boom. The sun (as crazy as this seems when you think about how big the sun is) is too small to go supernova
So many Weinberg gems in this talk. This one slide distills the essence of his approach to science wonderfully. As someone who interacts primarily through the command line still, I feel for the loss of the “good old days” of MS-DOS. 🙂
December 7, 2024 at 2:11 PM
So many Weinberg gems in this talk. This one slide distills the essence of his approach to science wonderfully. As someone who interacts primarily through the command line still, I feel for the loss of the “good old days” of MS-DOS. 🙂
Reposted by Robert Fisher
floss.fund is offering $1 million per year grant to open-source projects. But very few applications have been received so far, and it needs help spreading the word.
Please RT/boost and upvote it on HackerNews: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4227...
#foss #OpenSource #sustainability
Please RT/boost and upvote it on HackerNews: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4227...
#foss #OpenSource #sustainability
Funding for Free and Open Source projects - FLOSS/fund
floss.fund
November 29, 2024 at 12:44 PM
floss.fund is offering $1 million per year grant to open-source projects. But very few applications have been received so far, and it needs help spreading the word.
Please RT/boost and upvote it on HackerNews: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4227...
#foss #OpenSource #sustainability
Please RT/boost and upvote it on HackerNews: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4227...
#foss #OpenSource #sustainability
Exciting to see so many new folks here. I’m a computational astrophysicist working to understand how dead cinders of stars can blow up and light up the sky in a last hurrah. We use big computers. (Figure below courtesy of current PhD student Vrutant Mehta and collaborator Ruediger Pakmor.)
December 1, 2024 at 5:48 PM
Exciting to see so many new folks here. I’m a computational astrophysicist working to understand how dead cinders of stars can blow up and light up the sky in a last hurrah. We use big computers. (Figure below courtesy of current PhD student Vrutant Mehta and collaborator Ruediger Pakmor.)
Reposted by Robert Fisher
Exciting news everyone! I am hiring a postdoc scholar to work with me at Oregon State Physics. If you love computational astrophysics, supernovae, and/or compact object mergers, this may be a great fit for you. More information here: aas.org/jobregister/...
Postdoctoral Scholar in Theoretical and Computational Astrophysics | American Astronomical Society
The Department of Physics at Oregon State University invites applications for a 2 year postdoctoral scholar position. The successful candidate will work with Prof. Sanjana Curtis on multi-messenger as...
aas.org
September 18, 2024 at 5:06 PM
Exciting news everyone! I am hiring a postdoc scholar to work with me at Oregon State Physics. If you love computational astrophysics, supernovae, and/or compact object mergers, this may be a great fit for you. More information here: aas.org/jobregister/...
I participated in the judging of an elevator pitch competition hosted by our campus’s NSBE chapter. Every one of the participants deserves the opportunity to go to the national meeting to advance their career aspirations.
Can you help make it happen?
www.linkedin.com/posts/maxime...
Can you help make it happen?
www.linkedin.com/posts/maxime...
Maxime Larsen on LinkedIn: #nsbegold #nsbegold #nsbe
I just got asked a magical question! Why don't you bring every student from NSBE to the National Convention? I know the answer to this valid question but I…
www.linkedin.com
October 6, 2024 at 4:37 PM
I participated in the judging of an elevator pitch competition hosted by our campus’s NSBE chapter. Every one of the participants deserves the opportunity to go to the national meeting to advance their career aspirations.
Can you help make it happen?
www.linkedin.com/posts/maxime...
Can you help make it happen?
www.linkedin.com/posts/maxime...
The great astro Exodus from X took place early in Bluesky’s development, thanks to @astrokatie.com’s engagement. With X continuing to melt down, these numbers will only grow with time.
September 22, 2024 at 6:40 AM
The great astro Exodus from X took place early in Bluesky’s development, thanks to @astrokatie.com’s engagement. With X continuing to melt down, these numbers will only grow with time.
Reposted by Robert Fisher
A calming happy astro #poem for the start of your week.
I'm guessing John Updike wasn't aware of the blaze star though, a white dwarf that is currently busy cannibalising its neighbour, and about to explode, creating hellfire for a whole week! 🧪🔭 😱
ℹ️: www.astronomyedinburgh.org/2024/07/10/t...
I'm guessing John Updike wasn't aware of the blaze star though, a white dwarf that is currently busy cannibalising its neighbour, and about to explode, creating hellfire for a whole week! 🧪🔭 😱
ℹ️: www.astronomyedinburgh.org/2024/07/10/t...
July 29, 2024 at 6:58 AM
A calming happy astro #poem for the start of your week.
I'm guessing John Updike wasn't aware of the blaze star though, a white dwarf that is currently busy cannibalising its neighbour, and about to explode, creating hellfire for a whole week! 🧪🔭 😱
ℹ️: www.astronomyedinburgh.org/2024/07/10/t...
I'm guessing John Updike wasn't aware of the blaze star though, a white dwarf that is currently busy cannibalising its neighbour, and about to explode, creating hellfire for a whole week! 🧪🔭 😱
ℹ️: www.astronomyedinburgh.org/2024/07/10/t...
My Heidelberg Joint Astronomical Colloquium, “An Emerging Consensus on White Dwarf Supernovae” is now available to view on YouTube. youtu.be/ZlRBn8PAyX8?si… @hitsters.bsky.social @mpi-astro.bsky.social
June 29, 2024 at 9:02 AM
My Heidelberg Joint Astronomical Colloquium, “An Emerging Consensus on White Dwarf Supernovae” is now available to view on YouTube. youtu.be/ZlRBn8PAyX8?si… @hitsters.bsky.social @mpi-astro.bsky.social
Huge congratulations to Logan Cabral-Pelletier and the other recipients on receiving a DOE CSGF fellowship! Logan is the second member or alum of my group to have garnered this highly selective honor, after Gabriel Casabona. www.energy.gov/science/arti...
June 14, 2024 at 1:19 PM
Huge congratulations to Logan Cabral-Pelletier and the other recipients on receiving a DOE CSGF fellowship! Logan is the second member or alum of my group to have garnered this highly selective honor, after Gabriel Casabona. www.energy.gov/science/arti...
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the ground-breaking ceremony at SMTI, the institution which later joined the University of Massachusetts system as the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 1991, bringing a world-class research university to the South Coast of Massachusetts.
June 14, 2024 at 12:04 PM
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the ground-breaking ceremony at SMTI, the institution which later joined the University of Massachusetts system as the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 1991, bringing a world-class research university to the South Coast of Massachusetts.