For much of my adult life, prominent new technology was mostly not (directly) in the world of atoms–Peter Theil’s famous quip that he asked for flying cars and got 140 characters. I blinked and suddenly we have an accelerating aerospace industry, new nuclear modalities, Waymos on the streets of San Francisco, a burgeoning robotics sector, and so many other exciting hardware developments in the pipeline.

The word 'understand' means something different in a physics context and a lay context. When physicists do not understand something, it does not mean they understand nothing about that topic. They might actually ‘know’ a whole lot via many reproduced experiments. ‘Not understanding’ could mean trying to explain a specific sub-problem within a larger field that no one had thought to explain before, or it could mean that there is some sort of 'effective' explanation but not a 'microscopic' one based on fundamental interactions.

Thus, it can be hard to disentangle if superconducting transition temperature (Tc) is different because the material is different (e.g. precise composition, defect density) or because Tc is actually different in materials identical other than isotope.

@aavishkar_patel For funds that have not been disbursed, yes. For those already disbursed, no way to claw back

This is also a test for academics. For the ones who are scared to express any heterodox opinion because it might endanger their grants: are you rejoicing suddenly receiving magic money from the sky? (grant $$ already disbursed is not clawed back, but subject to this sudden rebudgeting). For those decrying administrative bloat: will you willingly ‘share the pain’?

@WKCosmo So extra grant money falling from the sky for funds already disbursed? I wonder if anyone will express joy or gratitude

@MaximZiatdinov "I swoop in like a seagull, squawk loudly, shit everywhere, and fly off"

@XirtamEsrevni There isn't such a relationship in high temperature (and other unconventional) superconductors. Many HTSC compounds that do different things at room temperature

Indeed, here in second tier academia, there is no vibe shift. They're whining about how Elon (a physics major who has created more jobs for people who want to do physics-relevant things than anyone in this generation) and his band of cracked zoomers (far beyond the accomplishments of any grad student we could recruit) are slashing and burning waste that their own tax dollars pay for, all while bemoaning the ill effects of administrative bloat in their own institution. They are also old enough to remember a time when academics who rely on government and taxpayer support for their research knew that aggravating one side of the aisle would make scientific research no longer be a bipartisan cause.

If your parents named you Braydon, Byron, Braxton, Marlon, etc, congratulations you can moonlight as a particle or a quasiparticle.

Don’t bring your whole self to work. Bring your professional self to work. Even in academia.

The book-end of this era was a letter to faculty from all our grad students a few years back urging us to pursue certain hiring practices. An asterisks on page 1 said: “white women are not under-represented in physics.”