@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

j_bertolotti

@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz

Associated Professor of Physics at the University of Exeter.
Scientific visualizations (grouped under the hastag #PhysicsFactlet).
He/lui/on. All opinions are my own fault.

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atomicpoet, to random
@atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org avatar

I want to end the night on a high note and talk about a game that I really love.

Boson X has been in my library for almost a decade. Surely, it is the greatest endless runner I’ve ever played.

What intrigues me about this one is the mystery. I’m apparently a scientist dealing with particles, and I’m now running in this tube where the goal is to get 100% of something. The game hints at a story but leads it up to your imagination about what could be going on.

But then when you start the game, it is just pure adrenaline. You jump and must make sure the stay on the platforms. If you miss, the game stops. And if you hit 100% by running on the flashing rectangles, you move on to the next stage where things are more hardcore.

Boson X only takes up 20MB of space.

When was the last time you’ve ever encountered a game that looks and sounds this good that’s only 20MB? Almost never.

Yet, not only does it have a great art style, but a killer soundtrack too. Everything is colourful and sounds fantastic. Any modern PC can run this without a hitch. When I say “any” I mean it: Windows, Linux, and Mac ports are all available. And yes, this runs great on a Steam Deck.

Even though this game is simple, I’ve put untold hours into Boson X. Anyone can pick it up, but it is challenging to master. That’s a testament to how excellent it is.

Highly recommended!

Boson X screenshot (RTX 3080 Ti)
Boson X screenshot (RTX 3080 Ti)
Boson X screenshot (RTX 3080 Ti)

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@atomicpoet Feels like an accurate representation of what particle Physicists do at LHC 😁

carnage4life, to random
@carnage4life@mas.to avatar

Mercedes is the first automaker in the US to sell cars that are L3 self driving which means the driver doesn’t have to pay attention to the road.

It should be noted that Tesla’s products are at L2 despite brand names like Autopilot & Full Self Driving that imply it’s at L5.

https://fortune.com/2024/04/18/mercedes-self-driving-autonomous-cars-california-nevada-level-3-drive-pilot/

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@carnage4life The real test for any self-proclaiming "self driving car" is: can they cross Rome from one side to the other?
(Answer: no they can't and are unlikely to in foreseeable future.)

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@nus
Rome being Rome I would expect the car to just give up, stop in the middle of the road, and the driver to be burnt alive by a mob of very angry commuters.
@carnage4life

j_bertolotti, to random
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Fisici italiani: sapete se esiste un buon libro di "Metodi matematici per la Fisica" in italiano o se è un buco del mercato in attesa di essere riempito?

lisyarus, to random
@lisyarus@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

New blog post: Demystifying multiple importance sampling

It is a simple thing that turns out to be confusing to a lot of us rendering engineers. I try to explain it in detail here with path-tracing examples!

https://lisyarus.github.io/blog/posts/multiple-importance-sampling.html

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@lisyarus I am biased by years of working in optics, but using ω as a direction feels cursed.

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@lesley Beside, if one uses it as a direction, there should be some visual indication you are talking about a unit vector, e.g. r̂.
@lisyarus

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@lisyarus Hard disagree. Together with using standard symbols for standard quantities (in Physics&co the same quantities keep turning up over and over), it helps parsing an otherwise complex equation at a glance.
@lesley

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@lisyarus Well, as I said in my first comment, I am biased 🙂 @lesley

atomicpoet, to random
@atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org avatar

I played Shenmue III, which is the first Shenmue game I’ve ever played. Believe me, I have thoughts!

If you’re not aware of Shenmue, it’s considered the SEGA Dreamcast’s magnum opus. Conceived by Yu Suzuki – considered SEGA’s equivalent to Shigeru Miyamoto – it was the biggest, most detailed AAA title SEGA ever produced. Certainly, it was the most expensive game anyone had ever made until that point.

It got a sequel two years later which arrived on the Dreamcast and Xbox. After Suzuki left SEGA, he formed his own studio called YS Net and crowd-funded Shenmue III on Kickstarter.

For years, people have been talking up this series as the grand-daddy of open world games, one which opened the floodgates for the likes of Grand Theft Auto III. I have my doubts about that, which I will get to in a moment.

Regarding Shenmue III itself, I made the big mistake of not starting with the first game of the series. This is a problem because I was seemingly dropped into the middle of the story, and whole lot clearly went on in the other games that I wasn’t aware about.

However, from playing Shenmue III, it seems stuck in the past. I got the sense from playing it that it adhered quite closely to what the original Shenmue was like. I’m sure Shenmue fans would cry foul if it had a more modern game design so I don’t blame the developers for playing it safe.

For one thing, this game is not so open as I was lead it was going to be. It’s quite obvious that the developers wanted me to play the game a certain way, and going off the beaten path was a big no-no. Which again, this is fine – but it’s clear to me that this is not so much an open world game as it is something else.

In fact, while I was playing this, I got a serious sense of deja vu. This genre may have been new and novel to console gamers, but to a PC gamer such as myself, this was looking quite familiar to me.

And then it hit me. This is pretty much a console version of a 3D adventure game – the type I’d play on DOS, Windows, and Mac. You know, kind of like Grim Fandango or Syberia. The only big difference is that you control it with a gamepad instead of a mouse.

Sure, there are also mini-games as well as a few martial arts scenes. Yet the crux of this game is the adventure element. You have objectives, talk to people, do some investigating.

Shenmue didn’t come out of left field. Yu Suzuki was clearly aware of what was going on with PC gaming, and he wanted to bring it to Dreamcast. And I appreciate it, especially since he brought a Japanese cultural perspective to adventure gaming.

But Shenmue III was released in 2019. While it’s fidelity to the series is admirable, it doesn’t feel all that refined. This becomes readily apparent when you compare it to SEGA’s newer series, Like a Dragon. Frankly, I think that series out-Shenmues Shenmue by combining adventure gaming with combat and mini-games more seamlessly.

That’s not to say I don’t appreciate Shenmue for what it is. I admire the graphics and the sound. The dialogue is okay even if it feels stilted and the interactions with NPCs are more than a little odd. And it plays all great on the Steam Deck since it’s verified for the platform.

I’m not sure, though, that I want to see another Shenmue. Not that we’ll get one – I’m not sure the demand is there. Everything Shenmue does, a lot of modern games do better. Maybe if a Shenmue IV leaned more heavily into the adventure aspect, we’d have something that stands out.

Overall, Shenmue III isn’t a bad game but it isn’t impressive either.

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@atomicpoet Never played any of the Shenmue games, but I distinctly remember all the series fans being very disappointed by how badbthe third one was (if I remember correctly most people were also disappointed by the second one.)

j_bertolotti, to random
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Reason number 10²³ why I don't use M$ Windows: "Windows 11 now comes with its own adware"
https://www.engadget.com/windows-11-now-comes-with-its-own-adware-124531977.html

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Microfractal I am already running Linux, thanks 🙂

Rory29, to physics
@Rory29@mastodon.social avatar

I have a physics question for the cleverer people

Where are the parts of a atom that are not being parts of an atom

The proton, neutron, and electron?

Where are they when they are in their singularity?
The singular electrons makes electricity work

But where are the proton and the neutron when they are not joined as an atom?

Are they what fills the space between my ears?
#physics

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Rory29 Usually bumping around until (after a short time) they are captured by an atom. Just like electrons.

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Rory29 Opposite charges attract, but being the electron so much lighter than the proton, it orbits it a bit like a planet orbits the sun (the correct quantum mechanical explanation is a LOT more complicated, but don't bother about it now).
Neutrons are (as the name suggests) neutral, but feels also a different kind of force, known as the "strong nuclear force", which make protons and neutrons stick to each other and thus keep the atom nucleus together.

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Rory29 Physics is best learnt by going through the basic first and leaving the advanced topics for later. Start with a good course in classical mechanics and thermodynamics, then go to classical electrodynamics and only then tackle the more complicated topics (the strong nuclear force is a very advanced topics).

j_bertolotti, to random
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

#PhysicsFactlet: The "Ashcroft/Mermin Project"
I will try to (likely very slowly) go through the classic textbook "Solid State Physics" by Ashcroft and Mermin and make one or more animation/visualization per chapter.
This will (hopefully) help people digest the topic and/or be useful to lecturers who are teaching about it. As with all my animations, feel free to use them.
The idea is that the animations are a companion to the book, so I will give only very brief explanations here.

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

#PhysicsFactlet: The "Ashcroft/Mermin Project"
Chapter 1: The Drude Theory of metals
Electrons in a metal are accelerated by an electric field, but they keep bouncing on the metal defects/impurities. The resulting diffusion-like motion produces a roughly steady current.

Animated gif with a visualization of the Drude model. Electrons are shown as dark dots, moving from left to right between two line (representing the metal edges). They are accelerated by a electric field (not shown), but also scatter against a number of obstacle (gray dots). On the left the resulting current, which fluctuates but it is otherwise roughly constant, is shown.

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@mmby The Drude model neglects electron-electron interaction.

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@cortogantese You don't scatter on the crystal, you scatter on the defects.
As per why you don't scatter on the crystal, you need Bloch modes to explain that. In the Drude model it is just postulated.

eniko, (edited ) to random
@eniko@peoplemaking.games avatar

youtube recommendations be like "would you like to watch these videos from your sub box? no? would you like to watch these videos you've already watched in the past week? no? what about these 8 year old videos you've already watched? no? well then i got nothing"

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@eniko Yeah, YT recommendation page has been enshittified into uselessness a long time ago.

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@eniko Hasn't worked for me in years beyond the "here are a few videos from people you have watched a lot recently but you are not following" basic level.

franco_vazza, to random
@franco_vazza@mastodon.social avatar

@j_bertolotti going to show this wonderful visualisation of your tomorrow during lecture:

https://mastodon.social/@j_bertolotti/110588032069448056

🙏

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@franco_vazza Teaching electrodynamics or some astro-related topic?

j_bertolotti, to random
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Not a , but a full beginner-friendly tutorial on how to use speckle correlations for imaging through a scattering medium, complete with a step-by-step guide on how to set up your first experiment and analyse the data:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.14088

j_bertolotti, to random
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

On one hand Mathematical notation is arbitrary, and if you properly define what you mean by a term/symbol, you can choose whatever you want.
On the other hand any time you use terminology or notation with a meaning different from the usually accepted one, you are putting a lot of unnecessary cognitive burden on the reader.
And it is the reader's right to just decide the effort of understanding you is just not worth it.

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@robinadams Which shows that people doing Maths and people doing Philosophy are usually interested in different questions.

j_bertolotti,
@j_bertolotti@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@franco_vazza I mean, plenty of people ready to defend natural units, so I guess that one is a lost battle 🤷‍♂️

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