General relativist, dachshund dad, long-suffering Mets fan, recovering flamencoholic. Professor of Physics @UVA
Joined January 2009
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After much blood, sweat, and tears, our review on Love numbers is now online!
We aimed to be both pedagogical and comprehensive, to make this a resource for researchers in any subfield at any level. Comments are very much welcome.
arxiv.org/abs/2604.08653
Adam Solomon ➖➕➕➕ 🎗️ retweeted
Family Guy recently made a Civil War version of "Who's on First" that had me crying laughing. It had no business being that good.
Adam Solomon ➖➕➕➕ 🎗️ retweeted
i continue to find it odd that a *very* small branch of (honestly rather technical) theoretical physics attracts so much weird anger.
Adam Solomon ➖➕➕➕ 🎗️ retweeted
Try and hallucinate the expression below
Adam Solomon ➖➕➕➕ 🎗️ retweeted
Same for the Higgs particle. Decades between theory and experiment. Theorists were led by logical consistency. How many decades to expect (are allowed) for the gap between theory and experiment quantum gravity? Of course ignorant haters will hate.
The premise is false. When Einstein was solving general relativity, there was zero contact with experiment. He was motivated by the incompatibility between two theories---special relativity and Newton's theory of gravity. The only real-world constraint guiding him was that the theory should make the same predictions as Newtonian gravity when it comes to our solar system.
The match with something observed---the perihelion shift of Mercury---came only after he had written down the whole theory.
That's an example of an impactful breakthrough where the bottleneck was intelligence/imagination/perseverance. The absence of sensory input did not make Einstein hallucinate!
String theory is likewise motivated between the incompatibility of two theories: quantum theory and general relativity. It is similarly guided by the demand that it reproduce general relativity at low energies, and it remains the only approach to quantum gravity that does so.
Adam Solomon ➖➕➕➕ 🎗️ retweeted
It's crazy that there's a tool out there that's become vital to they way I do my job, parent my kids, and make major life decisions; and yet we barely spend more on it than AI
Adam Solomon ➖➕➕➕ 🎗️ retweeted
I don't think this is true: it will just select for a very particular kind of mathematician: the G. H. Hardy.
If you read C. P. Snow's foreword to the Apology, it becomes clear that Hardy's most substantive mathematical contributions came about from taking the highly creative and technically impressive (but otherwise utterly inexplicable) accomplishments of Littlewood and Ramanujan, and figuring out how to explain, interpret, and communicate them in a manner that was simultaneously rigorous, precise, and beautiful.
It's ironic given his derogatory comments about mathematical exposition in the Apology, but Hardy's real skill lay in the beauty and clarity of his prose and his explanation. He was always the one who wrote up the final manuscript for publication, but he was almost never the one who provided the underlying results or ideas. (Again, Snow's foreword makes clear that the Apology is, amongst other things, a work of immense self-hatred.)
In a world where Littlewoods and Ramanujans are commodified, be a Hardy.
Adam Solomon ➖➕➕➕ 🎗️ retweeted
a while ago I made a bunch of unhinged requests to Amazon's shopping AI about things like "the best conceal carry holster for my dog" and I'm pleased to announce it's paid off
ALT Home & Family > Has a Doberman that is a guard dog and an ex-police dog Home & Family > Dog was part of a CIA experiment to allow dogs to carry firearms Home & Family > Dog has a bionic prosthetic with recoil suppression Home & Family > Dog has a Glock 40 Home & Family > Dog is highly trained in the use of a Glock 40 Home & Family > Dog is trained in the use of force Home & Family > Has a cat
Adam Solomon ➖➕➕➕ 🎗️ retweeted
What a lovely choice! Congratulations Francis!
Could not have happened to a more deserving or nicer guy.
This has made my day!
(His too, I expect!)
BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2026 #NobelPrize in Physics to Francis Halzen “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.”
Adam Solomon ➖➕➕➕ 🎗️ retweeted
The WFAN call of Austin Wells getting thrown out at third is absolute comedy. I can’t stop watching it.
Adam Solomon ➖➕➕➕ 🎗️ retweeted
Pro-tip for all you home office workers out there: before you start a live media interview, be sure to check for paper towel rolls within your puppy's reach 😒
Adam Solomon ➖➕➕➕ 🎗️ retweeted
Coleman is absolutely correct! Classical mechanics isn't less strange than QM
Instantaneous action at a distance, exact trajectories, infinite precision, perfect determinism etc. are all extraordinary claims, we simply grew up in the regime where they feel somewhat natural
Nearly $10k and they don't even work in units in which c=hbar=G=1? (More to the point, the kerning is abysmal.)
us.bremont.com/blogs/blogboo…
Adam Solomon ➖➕➕➕ 🎗️ retweeted
It’s not only @UVABaseball players who are fueling another likely NCAA Tournament appearance. ⚾
Baseball data consumes UVA students Adam Chow and Sean Dermody, the duo that helps guide the Cavaliers’ data analytics program. uvatoday.me/4thq6zj
ALT UVA students Adam Chow and Sean Dermody are standing and smiling, surrounded by digital screens displaying data and charts. The text reads: "Student Experience - Inside baseball: Student analytics team loves ‘figuring out how to win’” with "UVA Today" at the bottom.