Jonathan Byrd

Howdy, BlueSky. I’m a songwriter, poet, and essayist from North Carolina in the US. In 2023, I accidentally became a physics undergrad. I might make you cry: jonathanbyrd.substack.com

My son took this from our driveway. He calls it “Orion’s kilt”

When the recipe says add 1 teaspoon of vanilla

“Disability is a family you can join at any point in your life.” — Judith Heumann

ChatGPT, DeepSeek, and Gemini are all pretty good at physics and calculus, ymmv. However, they are all terrible at differential equations. Can any smart people weigh in as to why?

When she says, “Find the parametric equations of the line tangent to the spacecurve at t=1”

When Plato says art can be used for the good of the State, I just think, Wow. Those were different times.

I had a differential equations problem today, and the only way I found to solve it was to create an excel spreadsheet and iterate for 16,000 rows, the whole time thinking about those NASA ladies doing that by hand for the space program, but also I HAVE OTHER THINGS TO DO PROFESSOR

My son did this last night in our backyard. I’m kind of flabbergasted.

Women casually make magic.

Sometimes the timeline is a magic eight-ball of wisdom.

What I really think about rubies.

Government scientists & employees: I'm a freelance journalist who writes for NYT, Science, SciAm, Nature, etc. If you want to securely discuss disruptions to your work, I'm available on Signal at mgreshko.01. Use a personal device on a trusted network. 🧪

Mom, reality’s here. Something about a check.

Wait professors have to be the enemy now too?! They’re going to have to drop some board meetings

Cowboy up.

We did Jack’s DNA and turns out he’s 100% good boy

Struggling today with applying calculus. Wouldn’t it be strange if I memorized a bunch of chess games but didn’t know how to use a bishop? Stranger still if I made As in Chess I & II! That’s how it feels. I know how to integrate but not why. Just venting.

I’m in Calculus III right now and LOSING MY FRIGGIN MIND! This is wizard school!

It’s a pancake morning.

A proper snow.

Painters: I started with five pigments and recently started playing with two others: 1) Burnt umber 2) French ultramarine 3) pyrrole rubine 4) cadmium yellow 5) titanium white Then 6) ivory black 7) yellow ochre Honestly not finding the black very useful. Yellow ochre, maybe? What about you?

I had my own, private swearing-in ceremony.

Assume a spherical bird

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” — George Orwell, Animal Farm

Just had a sample of the Eaton Fire ash that is in my driveway run on the department XRF. Is there titanium (new house paint)? Yup. Lead (old house paint)? You betcha. Heavy metals? Check. Treat that ash like it's toxic folks (because it is)

I used ChatGPT a lot for Physics I because the instruction was pretty chaotic. The LLM was about as good as fellow students, which was perfect for studying. I made a 98 in the class and 105 on the in-person final.

The bookshelf above my desk. The positive x-axis points upwards.

I hope this differential equations section lives up to this title.

I started Calculus III yesterday, Differential Equations and Physics II today. Wrote an essay about Socrates and Bertrand Russell and turned that in before dinner. Took the boy out to shoot Saturn. Bought groceries. That’s enough. G’night.

My son just decided to read a users manual. We have definitely dialed in the ADHD meds.

Fire, loss, and wisdom.

I’m looking for contemporary female painters. Thank you.

Perfect day.

Got some pretty snow last night here in North Carolina. Woke up to ice. Making French toast as per tradition.

I teach people how to play my guitar parts over on Patreon. Almost done with The Law and the Lonesome album. Join us!

This is the best physics textbook I’ve used, by far. Unfortunately, there are a lot of wrong answers to the odd-numbered problems in the back, at least in the fourth edition (which I could afford). However, there’s a fantastic errata list on their website! matterandinteractions.org/errata/

I made my first 3-D thingie! Please clap.

A physics textbook will say, “compare the change in magnitude to the magnitude of the change” to remind you that philosophy never goes away.

For millennia, humans have gazed up at the night sky and wondered, who is a good boy? My personal research has shown that Jack is a good boy. (Sorry, it’s not a blurry picture. It’s a blurry dog.)