Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees

@mcnees.bsky.social

Physicist and Professor at a university in Chicago. I study black holes, quantum gravity, and cosmology. Rocky Top, Tar Heel. Reposts are spooky action at a distance. My views, not my employer's. https://jacobi.luc.edu https://mcnees.github.io

17.1K followers827 following12.5K posts

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

You may hear that OpenAI is releasing (among other results) a “proof of pure Yang-Mills in four dimensions.” This is a math result which, if it holds, addresses a formal question for mathematicians but doesn’t actually impact physics in any meaningful way. 🧪 ⚛️

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

I mean, it’s half of a Millennium problem. Maybe not the hard half (mass gap). But as physicists we already knew this result. It doesn’t change what we can calculate or how we calculate it. It isn’t a new observation about Nature.

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

Just had the sinking realization that there are people on at least one of my basketball message boards who are using LLMs to draft their posts. It didn’t really register until I noticed them parroting an LLM’s apology structure when responding to criticisms of their posts.

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

We are in a golden age of basketball nicknames (Slim Reaper, Beef Stew, Great Barrier Thief, Grand Theft Alvarado) but the Valkyries playing in Ballhalla is on another level. 🧑‍🍳🤌💋

Danielle H@danielleceltics.bsky.social

Ballhalla going nuts! The Golden State Valkyries are one win away from winning the #WNBA Finals in just their 2nd year in existence.

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

Old Russian witch goes to doctor. Says she's depressed. Kids these days are all gristle, price of brooms is way up, future is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. Great witch Baba Yaga is in town! Go see her, you’ll feel better." Witch bursts into tears. “But doctor...”

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

So a huge country full of wonderful people scores a decisive win against fascism, and now there’s no air left in the room for a pointless and at best mildly amusing post from a mid-tier account. Got it. Wow.

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

Yesterday, October 24th, was essentially the 81st birthday of humans figuring out Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. George Gamow sent a postcard to Niels Bohr on that day in 1941, in which he explained his first few attempts at understanding the origin of light elements in the early Universe.

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees@mcnees.bsky.social

Parents, PLEASE check your kids’ Halloween candy this year. I just found atoms in this candy bar that were formed during BIG BANG NUCLEOSYNTHESIS, and many more that were the result of earlier generations of stars exploding as POWERFUL SUPERNOVA. Parents need to know about this dangerous trend!!

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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

I can't imagine there's more than trace amounts of any of those in your kid's Halloween Candy. Still, better safe than sorry. As far as I'm aware, Gamow's letter to Bohr is the first instance of these ideas being released into the wild. 🎂💥☢️🍬🍭🎃

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

Yesterday, October 24th, was essentially the 81st birthday of humans figuring out Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. George Gamow sent a postcard to Niels Bohr on that day in 1941, in which he explained his first few attempts at understanding the origin of light elements in the early Universe.

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees@mcnees.bsky.social

Parents, PLEASE check your kids’ Halloween candy this year. I just found atoms in this candy bar that were formed during BIG BANG NUCLEOSYNTHESIS, and many more that were the result of earlier generations of stars exploding as POWERFUL SUPERNOVA. Parents need to know about this dangerous trend!!

View full thread
Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

Gamow didn't publish his results until about a year later. In the interim he made significant revisions to his initial timeline for the formation of stable (²H, ³He, ⁴He, ⁷Li) and unstable (³H, ⁷Be) light nuclei in the early universe.

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

Yesterday, October 24th, was essentially the 81st birthday of humans figuring out Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. George Gamow sent a postcard to Niels Bohr on that day in 1941, in which he explained his first few attempts at understanding the origin of light elements in the early Universe.

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees@mcnees.bsky.social

Parents, PLEASE check your kids’ Halloween candy this year. I just found atoms in this candy bar that were formed during BIG BANG NUCLEOSYNTHESIS, and many more that were the result of earlier generations of stars exploding as POWERFUL SUPERNOVA. Parents need to know about this dangerous trend!!

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

He considered nuclear physics in a post-Hot Big Bang Universe. In his words, he was “studying the problem of the origin of elements at the early stages of the expanding universe. It means bringing together the relativistic formulae for expansion and the rates of thermonuclear and fission reactions.”

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

Gamow's first few calculations suggested that most of the light elements would have formed between the first thousandth and tenth of a second after the hot big bang. He was excited by these results, resolving to focus “on the borderline between nuclear physics and cosmology.”

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

One of the very first video games, and certainly the first (but not last!) example of a video game designed by a physicist! 🧪 ⚛️ 👾

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees@mcnees.bsky.social

Physicist William Higinbotham was born #OTD in 1910. During the Manhattan Project he was the Electronics Group leader at Los Alamos. In 1958, while working at Brookhaven Lab, he invented one of the first video games: “Tennis for Two.” It ran on an oscilloscope! 🧪 ⚛️ Image: Brookhaven National Lab

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees reposted

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

Physicist William Higinbotham was born #OTD in 1910. During the Manhattan Project he was the Electronics Group leader at Los Alamos. In 1958, while working at Brookhaven Lab, he invented one of the first video games: “Tennis for Two.” It ran on an oscilloscope! 🧪 ⚛️ Image: Brookhaven National Lab

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees reposted

Emily Rice
@emilylrice.me

I LOVE MUSEUM HALLOWEEN! “Are you Bob Mackie’s Moon Goddess, awarded Barbie of the Year for 1995?” YES I AM!!! (A few people actually did recognize my costume, unprompted!) 🌙

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

If it’s true that we all in some sense engineer our own demise, well in this case I’m really pulling for a literal realization of that principle.

Amy Feldman@amyfeldman7.bsky.social

*NEW* Colossal Biosciences’ Ben Lamm and Anduril’s Palmer Luckey team up on a new startup to genetically engineer war dogs for the military. Warhound comes out of stealth at $1.2B valuation For @forbes.com with @iainmartin.bsky.social and @mhunterhart.bsky.social www.forbes.com/sites/amyfel...

forbes.comBillionaires Palmer Luckey And Ben Lamm Spin Up Startup To Genetically Engineer Military DogsBen Lamm of de-extinction startup Colossal has teamed up with Palmer Luckey’s team at Anduril to create a dog that’s optimized for military use. The new “warhounds” will be cloned and gene edited.

Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees reposted

Sonja Drimmer
@sonjadrimmer.bsky.social

This piece by student journalist Naishu Vempali made me pump my fist in solidarity. I hope when I’m back teaching at UMass next year they take a class with me, where they can expect nothing but top quality human-grade feedback, interaction, and attention. dailycollegian.com/2026/10/chat...

dailycollegian.comChatGPT is my new TA, and I’m scared“It feels as though everyone in charge of our education has already accepted that, at the pace we’re moving, we’re all going to have to use AI at some point in our careers. By tasking us with AI assig...
Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

Some dipshit is going to steal an early voting drop box because they’re afraid their House-Senate-Governor parlay isn’t going to hit.

Oliver Darcy@oliverdarcy.bsky.social

Scoop from @brettlogiurato.bsky.social: CBS has sold its local election night coverage to DraftKings, stirring more controversy inside the David Ellison-owned company. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/cbs-draftk...

status.newsCBS' DraftKings GambleCBS' owned stations will carry DraftKings branding through Election Night, Status has learned, a sponsorship that has stirred concern inside the company.
Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees
@mcnees.bsky.social

“Professor, you have to understand, I wasn’t copying that other student’s exam. It was an experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities of your classroom.”

PBS News@pbsnews.org

A national polling organization revealed on Tuesday that the vast majority of its data had been fabricated, saying it was an "experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities" of the modern political polling industry. https://to.pbs.org/4k8qT4q

pbs.orgA company says its polls were fake. Here’s what happenedA national polling organization revealed on Tuesday that the vast majority of its data had been fabricated, saying it was an “experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities" of the modern pol...