I built a webpage for strange space sounds!

I built a webpage for strange space sounds!

Let's play a game: Name That Particle

Homemade-cloud-chamber fun

Let's play a game: Name That Particle

Homemade-cloud-chamber fun

Gordon Moore, of Intel and Moore's law fame, dies at 94. He and his wife supported fundamental physics research through the Gordon and Betty Moore foundation

Gordon Moore, of Intel and Moore's law fame, dies at 94. He and his wife supported fundamental physics research through the Gordon and Betty Moore foundation

Here’s a peek into the mathematics of black holes - A nearly 1,000-page proof shows that slowly rotating black holes are stable

Here’s a peek into the mathematics of black holes - A nearly 1,000-page proof shows that slowly rotating black holes are stable

Physicists Really Ought to Share More Raw Data and Scripts

The recent superconductor papers make it seem pretty obvious to me that the field needs greater transparency when it comes to publishing data. And it's probably not just condensed matter physics that can improve, it's probably most subfields. If you publish results based on some data, you should really do your best to publish the raw data and scripts that produced your results. For the recent superconductivity papers it really shouldn't be hard to share all of this data and analysis from start to finish.

I got my PhD in physics and now I'm in computational biology. Biology has got its own problems, but the fact that there are methods researchers in biology who specialize in data analysis means that there is a large push to get people to share data and methods online. Many journals now require a "data availability" statement about where/how the data will be available online, and genetics datasets are huge so most physicists don't have that excuse.

Here's a list of data repositories in physics and other fields where you can share your data: https://www.nature.com/sdata/policies/repositories

There's also Github for smaller datasets.

The goal of the methods section is to enable people reading your paper to reproduce your experiment or analysis. If they can't do that then you haven't done your job.

Sure, there are exceptions. Some datasets are going to be too large to reasonably share, but surely you could still share scripts and some processed data. I don't need to see every pixel imaged by your cameras, just the ones that are relevant to your results. Each subfield needs to come up with its own norms.

In recent years I have just created a Github page for each paper, post the data or links to the data, post the scripts, and post a readme that outlines how to generate the results of the data with the scripts. It's not that hard.

Someone on the other thread said something like, "Oh, I have gigabytes of data and an incomprehensible lab notebook, good luck sorting through all of that if I share it." But I feel like this is exactly the problem that data sharing is designed to prevent, and it's also basically scientific misconduct to not keep reasonable lab notebooks of your data.

When I was a physicist I did a bad job of this myself. I never shared data or scripts online. My PI would never have allowed it. I asked other research groups for the data they used to generate published images and they said no. Today, as an outsider, I think it's easier for me to point out the problems that existed back then, and it's possible for me to see where different fields can learn from each other now that I've been a part of both of them for so many years.

I really don't have any skin in the game anymore, except for the fact that I got into science because I thought it was more important than an exercise in story-telling and picture-making.

Physicists Really Ought to Share More Raw Data and Scripts

The recent superconductor papers make it seem pretty obvious to me that the field needs greater transparency when it comes to publishing data. And it's probably not just condensed matter physics that can improve, it's probably most subfields. If you publish results based on some data, you should really do your best to publish the raw data and scripts that produced your results. For the recent superconductivity papers it really shouldn't be hard to share all of this data and analysis from start to finish.

I got my P...

Just finished this book - Highly Recommend It

Just finished this book - Highly Recommend It

Lensing near a wall

Hi guys, saw this effect at a trainstation. What causes this? Maybe changes in the refractive index due to temperature differences near the wall. Or this weird effect that makes shadows connect (Penumbra stuff idk).

Lensing near a wall

Hi guys, saw this effect at a trainstation. What causes this? Maybe changes in the refractive index due to temperature differences near the wall. Or this weird effect that makes shadows connect (Penumbra stuff idk).

‘The main motivation behind this study was the wish to characterize and illustrate the Milankovitch hypothesis in a simple, elegant, and intuitive way.’ — Model illustrates how climate cycles are influenced by our planet’s orbit

‘The main motivation behind this study was the wish to characterize and illustrate the Milankovitch hypothesis in a simple, elegant, and intuitive way.’ — Model illustrates how climate cycles are influenced by our planet’s orbit

Raw data vs published data for "room temperature superconductor" with very unconventional background subtraction techniques

Raw data vs published data for "room temperature superconductor" with very unconventional background subtraction techniques

Photosynthesis May Rely on Quantum Mechanics for Near-Perfect Efficiency, New Study Suggests

Photosynthesis May Rely on Quantum Mechanics for Near-Perfect Efficiency, New Study Suggests

DIY Atomic beam furnace for the Stern-Gerlach-Experiment

DIY Atomic beam furnace for the Stern-Gerlach-Experiment

James Webb Telescope captures the same galaxy at three different points in time in a single mind-boggling image

James Webb Telescope captures the same galaxy at three different points in time in a single mind-boggling image

Muons unveiled new details about a void in Egypt’s Great Pyramid

Muons unveiled new details about a void in Egypt’s Great Pyramid

I'm giving a live tour of the ATLAS Experiment at CERN tomorrow on YouTube!

I'm giving a live tour of the ATLAS Experiment at CERN tomorrow on YouTube!

Physicists who built their career on a now-discredited hypothesis what did you do after?

If you worked on a theory that isn’t discredited but “dead” for one reason or another (like it was constrained by experiment to be measurably indistinguishable from the canonical theory or its initial raison d’être no longer applies), feel free to chime in.

Physicists who built their career on a now-discredited hypothesis what did you do after?

If you worked on a theory that isn’t discredited but “dead” for one reason or another (like it was constrained by experiment to be measurably indistinguishable from the canonical theory or its initial raison d’être no longer applies), feel free to chime in.

Scientists Levitate a Glass Nanosphere, Controlling Quantum State for an Object for the First Time

Scientists Levitate a Glass Nanosphere, Controlling Quantum State for an Object for the First Time

I made a 3D Projectile Visualizer
I made a 3D Projectile Visualizer
I made a tool that helps you visualize what a kilogram is
I made a tool that helps you visualize what a kilogram is
Physicists Use Quantum Mechanics to Pull Energy out of Nothing |The quantum energy teleportation protocol was proposed in 2008 and largely ignored. Now two independent experiments have shown that it works.
Physicists Use Quantum Mechanics to Pull Energy out of Nothing |The quantum energy teleportation protocol was proposed in 2008 and largely ignored. Now two independent experiments have shown that it works.