Katie Freese, a well-known particle cosmologist who has a new book coming out, was asking if I had an tips about publicity. Short answer: not really, no. I haven’t really figured that one out. But one of the most obvious things to do, in terms of possible benefit per unit effort, is to join Twitter and start talking about science with the other denizens there.
I thought I would suggest to her a dozen or so good scientists to follow — after all, there aren’t that many working physicists in this field who are active on Twitter. I went to send her a few recommendations, at which point I realized there are actually quite a few! Some of whom deserve a lot more recognition.
So here is a list I compiled, consisting of people who are (1) active researchers in particle physics or cosmology; (2) on Twitter; (3) known to me. (More specifically, “recalled or noticed by me while making this list.”) Obviously one could compile a much longer list if we expanded it to include science communicators of all stripes, or even active scientists (or even just physicists) of all stripes. But I’m only one guy here. If I’m missing anyone who certainly qualifies, leave a comment; I’ll be happy to add them if I feel like it. I’m sure this isn’t more than half of the people who might be included in such a list. Obvious systematic error in favor of English-speakers, sorry. Entries listed in no particular order.
See also Lucretius’s lists of physicists, astronomers, and philosophers on Twitter, and CERN’s list of physicists.
- Janna Levin
- Katie Mack
- John Johnson
- Matthew Buckley
- Lisa Randall
- Douglas Finkbeiner
- Roberto Trotta
- John Preskill
- Renee Hlozek
- Neal Weiner
- Bilge Demirköz
- William Dawson
- Andreas Albrecht
- Risa Wechsler
- Amanda Yoho
- Jorge Pullin
- Amedeo Balbi
- John Joseph Carrasco
- Albion Lawrence
- Adriana Caselotti
- Christine Corbett
- Kyle Cranmer
- Lloyd Knox
- Aidan Randle-Conde
- Daniel Doro Ferrante
- Matthew von Hippel
- David Tsang
- Josh McFayden
- Dave Goldberg
- David Simmons-Duffin
- Robert McNees
- Maria Spiropulu
- Jeffrey Forshaw
- Raymond Volkas
- James Wells
- Chip Brock
- Zosia Krusberg
- John Terning
- David Spergel
- David Hogg
- Gordon Watts
- Kate Shaw
- James Bullock
- Seth Zenz
- Phil Bull
- Brian Cox
- Stacey McGaugh
- Dmitry Pololsky
- Freya Blekman
- Mark Jackson
- Jo Dunkley
- Cliff Burgess
- Kevork Abazajian
- Pedro Ferreira
- Brian Greene
- Arttu Rajantie
- Jay Wacker
- Richard Ruiz
- Tony Padilla
- Tara Shears
- Adam Falkowski
- Pauline Gagnon
- Gerard ‘t Hooft
- Joseph Lykken
- Sekhar Chivukula
- JoAnne Hewett
- Shaun Hotchkiss
- Matt Strassler
- Richard Easther
- Robert Dijkgraaf
- Ed Copeland
- Michael Krämer
- Jon Butterworth
- Chris Quigg
- Lawrence Krauss
- Julianne Dalcanton
- Maurizio Pierini
- Jim Al-Khalili
- Andrew Pontzen
- Frank Close
- Jessie Shelton
- Risa Wechsler
- Frank Wilczek
- Sean Carroll
- Sabine Hossenfelder
- Jason Kalirai
- Raquel Ribeiro
- Marcelo Gleiser
- Laura Baudis
- Sarah Bridle
- Peter Coles
- Daniel Holz
- Benoit Famaey
- Andrew Jaffe
- Peter Steinberg
- Andrés Gomberoff
- Alan Heavens
- Erik Verlinde
- J. Richard Gott
- Jan Pieter vd Schaar
- Gianfranco Bertone
- Marco Delmastro
- Brian Schmidt
- Ben Farmer
- Sam Henry
- Katherine Freese
Comments
23 responses to “Particle Physicists and Cosmologists on Twitter”
I am not familiar with twitter. I have an account, just never use it. So I’m not sure if my suggestion is doable.
I thought the discussion forum with Dr. Craig was fantastic.
Discussion from a cosmologist, biologist, and philosophy standpoint, illustrating the extend of our knowledge and how the problems should be discussed.
Dr. Carroll, Dr. Rosenberg, and Dr. Maudlin were phenomenal. I had many aha- moments, and can’t wait for the discussion to be set free on YouTube.
Is it possible to continue this discussion also on Twitter?
Thank you again for such a great eye opener.
Oh, my, such a list! I forsee an augmentation of emergency pizza delivery frequency at the Armchair Physics Cave.
My big hope is that one or more of them will work on discovering exactly what dark energy is while I’m still around to learn that information. I’m 73 so time is running out for me to understand dark energy/matter before I’m gone!
Carolyn Porco — Cassini imaging lead, CICLOPS director An accomplished and fascinating scientist. Edit- Sorry, reread your article and noticed you were only listing particle physicists. Apologies for my lazy read
Other honourable mentions
Graham Farmello
Dave Goldberg
Paul Halpern
It would nice to write a couple of lines about each of them, so we could quickly identify the people we would be interested to follow.
Thanks for the list. I’ll follow some of those.
Thanks for the list…I Particle Fever.
I will continue some of these.
Thanks
Thanks for the mentioning. I didn’t know she has written a book! I just pre-ordered it 🙂
Self nomination: cosmologist at Imperial, staunch Bayesian, Twitter newbie 🙂 (Twitter: R_Trotta)
Thanks, Sean.
Would you please filter the list by observational astrophysicists/cosmologists?
Perhaps of interest: CERN and I both have related and probably highly-overlapping lists on twitter:
http://twitter.com/sethzenz/lists/particle-physicists [also includes astro]
http://twitter.com/CERN/lists/physicists
Perhaps some day in my copious spare time I will check for unique elements between your list and these.
Gerardus ‘t Hooft – Nobel laureate.
”Distinguished professor” – Utrecht University.
Roberto, added.
I’m not 100% that @gthooft is really Gerard ‘t Hooft, but it seems more likely than not. Anyone know for sure?
Seeing how much he complains about KLM, that is very likely the real Gerard ‘t Hooft. Also, almost everyone who isn’t him misspells his name. Most of my tweets are about surfing and life on Maui, but I’d be delighted if you’d add @garrettlisi
Thank you Dr.Carroll for that list.
I think Dr. Adam Frank (@adamfrank4), University of Rochester is also on Twitter.
“in terms of possible benefit per unit effort”
“Obvious systematic error”
Spoken like a true physicist, you should right a book, “Public Relations in Physics Terms.” Awesome list though!
Did I fail to pay my physics membership card? @closefrank has been on twitter for two years.
Dont know if the “mond folks” (but not only, luckily for them heh? 😉 ) count, but if yes Benoit Famaey (a.k.a. Ben, a.k.a me) is @darth_ben, and his accomplice Stacy McGaugh is @DudeDarkmatter
Thanks for this great list! It’s hard to find good scientists who tweet regularly! Another list with famous computer scientists would be super awesome! 😉
[…] Carroll (@seanmcarroll) recently published a list of particle physicists and cosmologists on Twitter. Below is a snapshot of that list embellished with statistics and profile information and ordered […]
Off topic – for Sean.
You’ve referred to Fr George Lemaitre as being a “Jesuit” priest.
He attended his local “Jesuit” highschool, but some digging indicates
that the connection ends about there.
To wit:
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8847
. . . and . . .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jmtxt/Father_of_the_Big_Bang/
Michael– Apparently you’re right. Sorry about that; I should have known better.