Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 6h

Big deal in the science policy for physics world. DOE Office of Science has consolidated all its advisory committees into one. The High Energy Physics Advisory Panel dated back to 1967. www.aip.org/fyi/doe-cons...

DOE Consolidates Office of Science Advisory Committees

Six long-standing committees advising the Department of Energy’s Office of Science have been rolled into one.

www.aip.org

1 1

Reposted by Will Thomas

undercoverhist.bsky.social @undercoverhist.bsky.social · 1d

On y aborde les questions suivantes:

un prix pour des méthodes? pour des conclusions sur les sources de la croissance? Pour des recommendations de politiques économique?

D'où vient ce prix qui n'est pas tout à fait un Nobel, à quoi sert-il dans le monde universitaire et la société?

3 9

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 1d

Woah, Joel Mokyr gets the Nobel Prize for Economics. That's like a hair's breadth from giving it to historian of science & technology Margaret Jacob. Blogged a bit about them back in the day:
rational-action.com/etherwave/20...
rational-action.com/etherwave/20...

Wakefield’s Nightmare, Pt. 1: The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution Chain – Ether Wave Propaganda

rational-action.com

4

Reposted by Will Thomas

Erik Angner @erikangner.com · 1d

That's like four economics awards in a row with a substantial economic-history component, right? That strikes me as a remarkable shift. www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists...

5 21 60

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 4d

For Hispanic Heritage Month, Adriana Minor looks at Mexican physicist Manuel Sandoval Vallarta's career at MIT, where he strove to build scientific relations between the US and Latin America. He returned to Mexico during WW2 when asked to abandon that work to focus only on teaching duties. #HPS

Manuel Sandoval Vallarta: The experiences of a transnational scientist in the US

AIP History Weekly Edition: October 10, 2025

www.aip.org

3 7

Reposted by Will Thomas

Daniel J Nicholson @djnicholson.bsky.social · 4d

My little book on Schrödinger's famous classic 'What Is Life?' is out! Offering the most comprehensive analysis ever undertaken of the book's origins, reception, impact, and legacy, it uncovers Schrödinger's motivations in writing it, and shows how it has shaped our current understanding of the cell

<i>What Is Life?</i> Revisited

Cambridge Core - Philosophy: General Interest - <i>What Is Life?</i> Revisited

www.cambridge.org

7 30 83

Reposted by Will Thomas

Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 5d

You've probably heard how a high percentage of #Nobel laureates are immigrants. The US in particular has benefited from the influx of bright minds.

@jennaahart.bsky.social ran the data for this century's Nobel prizewinners — and shows more than 30% immigrated. 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

More than 30% of this century’s science Nobel prizewinners immigrated: see their journeys

The most common destination for eventual Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry and medicine since 2000 is the United States, Nature has found.

www.nature.com

35 290 920

Reposted by Will Thomas

Made in China Journal @madeinchinajournal.com · 6d

Thirty years after the 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference, the Chinese government is once again calling on women to serve the nation, this time in science and technology. In this essay, @yangyangcheng.bsky.social revisits a century of women in science in China, tracing their struggles and achievements.

Beyond Representation: On Being a Woman in Science in China | Made in China Journal

In the autumn of 1995, Ye Shuhua made a speech. During the NGO Forum at the United Nation’s Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, the 68-year-old astronomer took to the microphone and cal...

madeinchinajournal.com

8 12

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 6d

Glad you asked! www.aip.org/research/pol...

Policy primer: A new $100,000 fee on H-1B Visas

President Trump has issued a proclamation requiring a $100,000 payment for each new H-1B petition. We examine what it does and does not do, how it is being justified, and what developments to look out...

www.aip.org

1

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 7d

And Martinis? His dad was a refugee from Yugoslavia. repository.aip.org/node/129661

My dad was born in Croatia. As it happened, his father left for the United States shortly
before the war. And the family left behind were kind of by themselves over the war and
thirteen to seventeen. So, he had a very difficult childhood, and especially the teenage
years, and actually never talked about it much. I think he did quite well for having such a
difficult time growing up. After the war, his family was trying to get to the United States.
Yugoslavia was beginning to close up at the time because of the communist government.
In the end, escaped from Yugoslavia and had security people chasing him to make an
example of him. In the old country his family fished. So, when he went to Washington
state that is what he did with his father and brother. During the off season he came
down to San Pedro in California, where he had relatives, and met my mom.

5 6

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 7d

Ooh, nice one! Reminds me of @airminded.org

ArtButMakeItSports @artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social · 7d

Incursione aerea, by Tullio Crali, 1932, 📸 by @sdgreatphotos

1 2

Reposted by Will Thomas

Physics Today @physicstoday.bsky.social · 7d

John Martinis on the advising style of fellow Nobel laureate John Clarke:

"He came into the lab and talked with you every day. At the time it was sometimes annoying, but looking back this was probably the single most important thing he did to train me as an experimentalist."

#NobelPrize

1 1 2

Reposted by Will Thomas

Physics Today @physicstoday.bsky.social · 7d

Michel Devoret also recalled John Clarke's "strict and intense training" in his 2021 @aip.bsky.social oral history interview:

"Basically, John Clarke was coming to see us every day in the lab and was asking, 'What is new today?'" He was both jovial and respectful, besides being demanding."

1 1 2

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 7d

Congratulations to this year's winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Be sure to check out our oral histories with:

John Martinis: repository.aip.org/node/129661

Michel Devoret: repository.aip.org/node/129778

4 6

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 8d

Remarkable stats here. Big year-over-year dropoff in international student arrivals, including a 44% dropoff from India. Smaller dropoff from China, but those numbers were already way down post-pandemic.

Nearly 20 Percent Fewer International Students Traveled to the U.S. in August

The data shows the steepest decline in August international student arrivals since the pandemic.

www.nytimes.com

1 9 11

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 11d

Adams, by the way, is fascinating. Not only did he not have a PhD, he had no university education whatsoever. Yet, he rose to become director of the UK's fusion research lab at Culham and a co-leader of CERN. 📷 © CERN #histsci #HPS royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

5

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 11d

In this week's AIP History Weekly Edition, we look at Barbara Hof's new article in BJHS on an unsuccessful push by British engineer John Adams to move @cern.bsky.social into fusion research. A footnote in CERN's history, the episode had lasting effects on the fusion landscape.

October 3, 2025

Article spotlight: Barbara Hof on CERN’s dalliance with fusion

www.aip.org

1 1 7

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 13d

This is fun, Jay Gambetta is the new head of IBM Research. He did his PhD on quantum interpretations and got into quantum computing because he thought it was a good way to figure out which interpretation is right! From my oral history with him: repository.aip.org/gambetta-jay...

IBM Names New Director of IBM Research

Arvind Krishna is pleased to share that Jay Gambetta will become Director of IBM Research effective October 1, 2025.

newsroom.ibm.com

4

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 13d

My hot take on the Turing Test: it's pretty wild how computers' ability to at-least-sort-of pass it seems to have had a huge effect on the psychology of human relations with their machines. "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked" and all that.

Anil Seth @anilseth.bsky.social · 13d

1/2 I'm looking forward to taking part in a panel on AGI and the Turing Test, tomorrow afternoon (Thurs 2nd Oct) at the @royalsociety.org, w/ Dame Wendy Hall, Shannon Vallor, William Isaac, & Sir Nigel Shadbolt. royalsociety.org/science-even...

Celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Turing Test | Royal Society

An event celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Turing Test, held at the Royal Society on 2 October 2025.

royalsociety.org

1

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 13d

An icon

Jane Goodall, primatologist and friend to chimpanzees, dies at 91

She used her global fame to draw attention to the plight of dwindling chimpanzee populations and, more broadly, to the perils of environmental destruction.

www.washingtonpost.com

7 26

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 13d

I like how the impression here is of the hurricanes approaching the US and basically taking a look and saying, "woah, let's get outta here" www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025...

2

Reposted by Will Thomas

Jon Lewis @jonlewis.bsky.social · 13d

Book comes out tomorrow! I'm terrified and excited.

LFG.

www.bloomsbury.com/us/contempor...

Contemporary Science Fiction and The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

This book seeks to create a new means of interrogating the direction in which contemporary science fiction is progressing.In the late 1950s, Hugh Everett III su…

www.bloomsbury.com

1 2 13

Reposted by Will Thomas

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 14d

After a long hiatus, AIP's postdoc position for historians of the physical sciences is back!

3 years, $77,500 per year + benefits. Work in the Washington, DC area, close to Univ of Maryland. Open to US citizens/permanent residents. Apply by Nov. 15! #histsci

workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/defau...

A green space with bushes and trees and a helix sculpture next to a beige building.

22 30

Reposted by Will Thomas

Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 13d

This is the list I've always wanted.

Physics World @physicsworld.bsky.social · 13d

We're starting our countdown to next week's #nobelprize by looking at Nobel prizes you've definitely never heard of - starting with a curious from of colour photography that won in 1908. @drmlharris.bsky.social reveals all. ⚛️🧪

physicsworld.com/a/nobel-priz...

Nobel prizes you’ve never heard of: how an obscure version of colour photography beat quantum theory to the most prestigious prize in physics – Physics World

Gabriel Lippmann received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1908 for an interference-based method of colour photography that was never commercially successful. Margaret Harris finds out why

physicsworld.com

1 5 13

Reposted by Will Thomas

Trevor Owens @tjowens.bsky.social · 14d

Lots of updates and opportunities in this month's @aip.bsky.social history monthly newsletter! Learn about some new photo collections, grants for archives and historians of science, and articles on a number of major history of science exhibitions and programs www.aip.org/history/aip-...

September 2025

AIP History September Update

www.aip.org

1 2