Roger Freedman
@rogerfreedman
Physics educator at UC Santa Barbara, textbook author, and San Diego Comic-Con OG. he/him/his
“I spoke to Mitch McConnell this morning for about 20 minutes. He’s in good spirits and ready to get off his tray.” #MitchMcConnell
On this June 23, International Women in Engineering Day, I am incredibly proud of all of the women engineering students I have had over the years - and incredibly honored to have had the chance to contribute in a small way to their education. #internationalwomeninengineeringday #womeninengineering 🎢
This guy’s in the pool contracting business the same way Tony Soprano was in the waste management business.
*Now* how is anyone supposed to beat the record for the Kessel Run?
A don’t-miss event at San Diego Comic-Con 2026, this panel will be hosted by Mathew Klickstein (author of SEE YOU AT SAN DIEGO, the oral history of Comic-Con) and will feature many of us who were there when it all began in 1970. #sdcc #comiccon #sandiego #comics #comicconvention 1/n
So James Comey has the Trump regime in a lather because he posted a photo of the numbers “86 47.” Meanwhile, the Air Force has decided to give their planned new fighter plane the designation… F-47. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_...
Cool depiction of the ground track of Artemis II on approach! Initially the spacecraft is moving almost straight toward earth’s center, so its ground track is westward as the earth rotates eastward. The ground track bends eastward as the trajectory becomes more parallel to the surface.🎢🪐 #ArtemisII
A shout-out from @shannonhale.bsky.social makes my day! #comics
If you're not sure whether your book is among those pirated, you can do a search here. secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup 🧵4/n
Shilling's postwar projects at the RAE included the Blue Streak missile, later the first stage of Europa, the first European orbital launch vehicle. Named an Office of the Order of the British Empire in 1949, today buildings at two British universities bear her name. #WomenInSTEM 🧵7/7
A hands-on engineer, Shilling was among those who traveled across Britain in 1941 to get the restrictors to fighter bases as soon as possible. This she did on her Norton motorcycle, which she had used prewar to become only the second woman to exceed 100 mph at Brooklands. #WomenInSTEM 🧵4/n
Shilling's solution to this problem was an inlet flow restrictor that allowed proper fuel flow under normal conditions but prevented excess flow for a short time during the pushover into a dive. Nicknamed "Miss Shilling's orifice," the device eliminated the German advantage. #WomenInSTEM 🧵4/n
Air combat in 1940 revealed a serious limitation of British fighters, whose engines used carburettors. These flooded during a rapid nose-over, causing the engine to cut out. The fuel-injected engines in German fighters did not cut out, allowing them to escape a pursuer by diving. #WomenInSTEM 🧵4/n
Her studies of the thermodynamics of diesel engines led to her being recruited by the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) in Farnborough. Just after the outbreak of World War II she was promoted to become technical officer in charge of carburettor research and development. #WomenInSTEM 🧵3/n
Fascinated from childhood with how devices work, Shilling was one of two 1932 engineering graduates from the Victoria University of Manchester. Women were so under-represented at the time that her student record card did not have female titles as an option. #WomenInSTEM 🧵2/n
For #WomensHistoryMonth: Let us celebrate the life and accomplishments of aeronautical engineer and competition motorcycle racer Beatrice Shilling OBE (1909-1990). Her #engineering advances helped with Allied victory in WW2 and continued into the space age. 🎢⚛️🧪 #WomenInSTEM 🧵1/n
Tragically, Sofya Kovalebvskaya died of pneumonia at age 41. She is remembered both for her mathematical accomplishments and as a lifelong advocate for women's rights. The Russian Academy of Sciences awards the annual Kovalevskaya Prize for outstanding achievements in mathematics. #WomenInSTEM 🧵6/n
She returned to Russia after her Ph.D., but finding an academic position there was impossible. After her husband's death by suicide in 1883, she moved to Sweden where she became a professor at Stockholm University—the first woman in Europe to hold such a position in modern times. #WomenInSTEM 🧵5/n
Dr. Kovalevskaya's contributions to mathematics included research into partial differential equations. The Cauchy-Kovalevskaya theorem is important for equations of this kind associated with Cauchy initial value problems, which play a key role in general relativity and many other applications. 🧵4/n
Her academic journey over the next few years included meeting the novelist George Eliot and attending the injured in the Paris Commune. Studying with Karl Weierstrass, in 1874 she became the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics, in part for her studies of the dynamics of Saturn's rings. 🧵3/n
Sofya displayed her unusual aptitude for mathematics at an early age, but to attend university she would have to study abroad—which required permission from her father or husband. To this end at age 18 she married a paleontology student, Vladimir Kovalevsky, and emigrated with him to Austria. 🧵2/n
For #WomensHistoryMonth: Let us celebrate the life and accomplishments of mathematician Sofya Kovalevskaya (1850-1891), who made important contributions to differential equations and analytical mechanics in an era when her native Russia forbade higher education to women. 🎢⚛️🧪 #WomenInSTEM 🧵1/n
Today radioimmunoassay continues to be used for a wide variety of medical tests. For her many contributions to medical science, Dr. Yalow received the the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1977 and the National Medal of Science in 1988. #WomenInSTEM 🧵4/4
In 1950 she began her collaboration with Solomon Berson, M.D. at the Bronx Veterans Administration Medical Center. Her nuclear physics expertise helped them develop radioimmunoassay, a technique they used to study the reaction between insulin and antibodies in treating diabetes. #WomenInSTEM 🧵3/n
After earning her B.S. in physics in 1941, Rosalyn was offered a teaching assistant position at the University of Illinois, where she did her Ph.D. research in nuclear physics. When she could not find a research position, she volunteered to work in a medical lab at Columbia University. 🧵2/n