Yi-Zen Chu

11.4K posts

Yi-Zen Chu banner
Yi-Zen Chu

Yi-Zen Chu

@Yi_Zen_Chu

Physicist.

Taoyuan County, Taiwan เข้าร่วม Ekim 2015
1.7K กำลังติดตาม1.8K ผู้ติดตาม
Bi-khim Hsiao 蕭美琴
Bi-khim Hsiao 蕭美琴@bikhim·
Exactly 30 years ago Taiwan held our first presidential elections. Since then & although imperfect, our young democracy has thrived and matured, but we are constantly reminded that freedom cannot be taken for granted, it has to be cherished and protected.
English
29
136
853
20.6K
Yi-Zen Chu
Yi-Zen Chu@Yi_Zen_Chu·
@PhilosophyOfPhy Wu's experiment did not "break" parity symmetry. It gave evidence that physical laws are not invariant under parity. By the way, she was nominated for the Nobel 20+ times. My department building is named after her. Namely, she is pretty damned famous.
English
0
0
0
83
Philosophy Of Physics
Philosophy Of Physics@PhilosophyOfPhy·
The experiment that broke a symmetry of the universe. She cooled cobalt to near absolute zero and proved the universe has a handedness. In 1956, Chien-Shiung Wu carried out the famous Wu experiment by cooling cobalt-60 to extremely low temperatures and observing how it decayed. At that time, scientists believed in parity symmetry, the idea that nature should behave the same if left and right are swapped like a mirror image. Wu’s experiment showed that this is not always true. In weak nuclear processes, nature actually prefers one direction over the other, revealing that the universe has a kind of “handedness.” The idea was first proposed by Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang, who later received the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics, while Wu, who made the discovery possible through her experiment, was not included. Her work showed something simple yet profound: the laws of nature are not perfectly symmetrical.
Philosophy Of Physics tweet media
English
6
10
52
2.3K
Yi-Zen Chu
Yi-Zen Chu@Yi_Zen_Chu·
@aekn1980 @bikhim Specific to the Gender Equity Education Act, the English version says for e.g. teachers need to fight gender stereotypes. This is not a position based on science; let alone based on the belief of individual liberty. Women and men are different; we should simply let them be.
English
1
0
1
21
Yi-Zen Chu
Yi-Zen Chu@Yi_Zen_Chu·
@aekn1980 @bikhim Loads of intelligent folks in Taiwan. I urge its leaders to not follow the West blindly. Its peak achievement lies in the Enlightenment Values and Classical Liberalism--Individual freedom; not collective social engineering.
English
1
0
1
33
𝗔𝗹𝗮𝗻 Graves
𝗔𝗹𝗮𝗻 Graves@AlanJackGraves·
Menopause shrinks women’s brains 🧠 This is a huge study that looked at over 125,000 women.
English
1
1
7
367
Yi-Zen Chu
Yi-Zen Chu@Yi_Zen_Chu·
@BookwormNYC1 @PhilosophyOfPhy Ever tried challenging it? The response from academics regarding criticisms of DIE is precisely why it should be simultaneously called DIE and a Religion--an extremely intolerant one, in fact. In (astro)physics, we have as a prime example, Particles for Justice.
English
1
0
0
7
Philosophy Of Physics
Philosophy Of Physics@PhilosophyOfPhy·
In 1967, 24-year-old postgraduate student Jocelyn Bell Burnell was analyzing miles of paper data from a radio telescope she had helped build at Cambridge. She noticed a strange "bit of scruff" that pulsed with incredible precision every 1.337 seconds. Because the signal was so rhythmic and unlike anything previously seen, Bell Burnell and her supervisor, Antony Hewish, jokingly nicknamed it LGM-1 for "Little Green Men," briefly considering the possibility of extraterrestrial origins. Further investigation revealed that the source was actually a pulsar, which is a rapidly spinning, highly magnetized neutron star—which provided the first observational proof that such dense stellar remnants exist. Despite her primary role in the discovery, the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Hewish and his colleague Martin Ryle. Decades later, Bell Burnell’s grace and impact remained undeniable. In 2018, she was awarded a $3 million Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. True to her commitment to the field, she donated the entire sum to the Institute of Physics to establish the Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund, which supports women, ethnic minorities, and refugees pursuing research in physics.
Philosophy Of Physics tweet media
English
4
26
102
3.6K
Yi-Zen Chu
Yi-Zen Chu@Yi_Zen_Chu·
@conncarroll How does sexual selection/evolution play a role regarding monogamy vs polygamy, what's "natural", etc.?
English
0
0
0
287
Conn Carroll
Conn Carroll@conncarroll·
This is actually mostly wrong. Our species norm is not polygyny. We are not gorillas. Yes, 80% of cultures are polygamous, but polygamy only spread after agriculture. The hunter-gatherer bands we spent hundreds of thousands of years in before that were monogamous. Also, Christianity did not inherit monogamy from Rome. It is true that Roman wives were expected to be monogamous, but Roman husbands could, and were even expected to, have sex with courtesans, concubines, prostitutes, and slaves. Christian monogamy was a sharp break, a true sexual revolution, away from the norm of powerful men monopolizing women. Now Louise Perry is correct that “lifting the monogamous restriction produces worse outcomes.” Monogamy is far better for society than polygamy. But that is because monogamy is our natural state, it was just corrupted for centuries after the dawn of agriculture. We are a species designed to form pair bonds and raise families together. Now there are tons of things in the modern world that are making it harder and harder to do that, but that is our natural state and we should fight to return to it.
Camus@newstart_2024

Our species norm is polygyny: 80% of cultures historically let high-status men hoard wives while low-status men get nothing. Christianity (inherited from Rome) forced monogamy for 2000 years. Now we've mostly ditched it—and we're sliding back toward the old pattern. Louise Perry: Lifting the monogamous restriction produces worse outcomes—higher crime, domestic violence, economic inequality. Monogamy is better for women and low-status men. Monogamy isn't "natural"—it's an engineered cultural upgrade that tamed inequality and violence. Do you think monogamy is worth defending even if it's not the "default" human pattern? Or are we better off returning to the species norm? Your take 👇

English
69
76
679
81.2K
Yi-Zen Chu
Yi-Zen Chu@Yi_Zen_Chu·
@LocasaleLab Regular NSF grants require a "broader impact" statement too; not just graduate fellowships. NSF should focus solely on scientific merit; "broader impact" should be made optional, if not abolished outright.
English
1
0
3
524
Jason Locasale
Jason Locasale@LocasaleLab·
The NSF graduate fellowship was one of my first exposures to how scientific institutions can deprioritize merit. There is a “broader impacts” section in the application that explicitly is used to select candidates independent of merit. In practice, it meant virtue signaling and political narrative carried as much or more weight than the underlying scientific qualifications of the student. The funding system needs a serious reset.
Stephen Turner 🦋 @stephenturner.us@strnr

‘Completely shattered.’ Changes to NSF’s graduate student fellowship spur outcry science.org/content/articl…

English
7
6
139
23.3K
Dries Van Langenhove
Dries Van Langenhove@DVanLangenhove·
Sadly, this conclusion is correct. Nathan Cofnas could easily be sent to jail in Belgium, as I was for statements that are far less easy to place under our dystopian ‘anti-racism laws’ than his. A month from now I must once again face criminal court and potential prison because I said, during a lecture at university, that parents will choose schools that are Whiter because these, on average, have better schooling quality. This is simply fact, but facts are illegal in Belgium if they go against the equality dogmas.
Nathan Cofnas@nathancofnas

Pierre Thiriar—a Justice on the Court of Appeal in Antwerp—wants me in handcuffs "When he states that genetic variants influencing intelligence may be unevenly distributed across populations and that this can explain differences in cognitive performance, this constitutes not merely a neutral hypothesis, but the empirical basis for a hierarchical view of human nature....the boundaries of Article 21 have been manifestly crossed." "Belgian case law has made it clear that packaging a discourse as 'scientific', 'philosophical', or 'critical' does not prevent it from being punishable when it objectively incites discrimination or propagates ideas of racial superiority."

English
11
44
503
14.1K
Yi-Zen Chu
Yi-Zen Chu@Yi_Zen_Chu·
@TGTM_Official Putting it on a scientific basis may help advance it further (at least its valuable parts).
English
0
0
0
42
The Great Translation Movement 大翻译运动
The Great Translation Movement 大翻译运动@TGTM_Official·
To truly appreciate Traditional Chinese Medicine, you have to understand the depth of wisdom behind it. It reflects a long history of observation, adaptation, and ingenuity—showing just how resourceful and resilient Chinese thinking has been. In this case, medicine is not something distant or exclusive. It is found in the most ordinary, everyday places—roots, leaves, kitchens, and markets—quietly integrated into daily life. By drawing from what is abundant and accessible, the cost of healing is kept low, yet its reach becomes vast. This way of thinking is both strategic and deeply practical. It is not just about curing illness, but about building a system where health is sustainable, inclusive, and enduring. Watch until the end, and you may begin to understand the quiet ingenuity behind Chinese medicine.
English
10
6
38
7.6K
Yi-Zen Chu
Yi-Zen Chu@Yi_Zen_Chu·
@slavov_n It is way overdue that academics look at the mirror.
English
0
0
3
428
Prof. Nikolai Slavov
Prof. Nikolai Slavov@slavov_n·
This spring, numerous European scientists have declined invitations to scientific conferences in the US, explicitly citing the current political climate as their reason for declining. This is at once understandable and stunning.
English
14
9
39
25.3K

ค้นพบ

@aekn1980 @bikhim @PhilosophyOfPhy @AlanJackGraves @BookwormNYC1 @conncarroll @DalePlemons @elonmusk