#FollowFriday: Dr. Ben Tippett (@bnprime)
Ben is a kind gentleman.
It’s Friday! You know what that means: binge-watching old Pete and Pete reruns and passing out in front of the TV. No? Just us? Well, for the rest of you, it’s also #FollowFriday! That’s where we try to convince you to follow great people on Twitter, and this week that great person is TARDIS-theorizing physicist Dr. Ben Tippett.
Who he is:
Way back in November, we heard about a pair of physicists who wrote a paper about the physics of “Traversable Achronal Retrograde Domains in Spacetime,” and one of them was Dr. Tippett. Yeah, they wrote about spacetime bubbles you can ride inside of and skillfully arranged an acronym for them to read “TARDIS,” because what else would you do as a physicist?
Dr. Tippett is a theoretical physicist and mathematician who earned his PhD at the University of New Brunsick. When he’s not busy delighting nerds by writing papers about Doctor Who, zombies, superhero physics, or Cthulhu, Dr. Tippett does his fair share of podcasting, tweeting, and black hole research. You know—the usual hobbies.
Why you should follow:
Dr. Tippett is one of the great unsung heroes of the Internet, which is what #FollowFriday is really all about. His podcast, The Titanium Physicists Podcast goes over all kinds of scientific subjects with a whole bunch of really smart people, analogies, and humor, and it’s generally a delight—despite the infrequency of its episodes.
(Maybe if everyone follows him on Twitter and starts listening to the podcast, the episodes will become more regular. Only one way to find out.)
His tweets, on the other hand, tend to center more around geek entertainment like a lot of his papers do, which is really fun to see in your feed. Basically, the world could use more Dr. Ben Tippett, and following his geeky musings on Twitter is a great way to start.
Great tweets:
i like how on muppet movies, our friends are always working menial jobs.as if we looked around us, wed see muppets, but theyre below notice
— bnprime (@bnprime) December 19, 2013
Miss piggy doesn’t fit in with the rest of the muppets because she’s got a multidimensional character. everyone else is a gag. Poor Ms piggy
— bnprime (@bnprime) December 19, 2013
This just in: a physicist says Muppets exist. That’s the correct reading of this, right?
If movies have taught me anything, it’s that only little white kids can save Christmas. Hmmm.
— bnprime (@bnprime) December 16, 2013
the more i teach, the more i envy alan rickman’s snape. with his stone cold delivery, and command of every room he’s in.
— bnprime (@bnprime) December 11, 2013
Keep in mind: your professor may be trying his hardest to emulate a Harry Potter character while you are doggedly trying to learn things, because there is no such thing as a grownup.
(via Dr. Ben Tippett @bnprime on Twitter)
- We also think you should be following Gail Simone
- Follow babby tips and learn to care for babby
- Yale Stewart is the creator of JL8, and he’s great at Twitter
Have a tip we should know? tips@themarysue.com
