I almost forgot to stare in majesty and wonder at a glorious Canadian sunrise this morning.

Oh, wait ... no I didn't. #TheGreatNorth

Hi, my name is Steve Sekula!

I am a physicist, husband, runner, writer, and sometimes drummer.

I am a Professor of Physics at Queen's University and Research Group Manager at SNOLAB, the deepest and cleanest science lab in the world. I hunt for galactic supernovas and for the fundamental nature of dark matter.

I am a published non-fiction author working on a series of books for college students whose love for physics needs rekindling.

#introdiuction #introductions

... and we have UPLOAD! So far, so good on server settings.

I feel like a cat pic is a good third post. Also a good test that my new Mastodon instance is media-capable ... 🙂

FINALLY got a Mastodon instance spun up on my domain. I put this off for technical reasons, but I finally sorted those out and here we are!

@clacke@mastodon.social @clacke@libranet.de I am glad this was helpful! I have to admit, though: my GNU social site is on my list of assets to retire. The last time I checked several months ago, there hadn't been any development. I worry more and more about server vulnerabilities enabled by unmaintained PHP code. It won't be too soon, but probably later this year I will retire the server.

@clacke Go nuts!

@evan @dsearls I really hope they invite you back again before 2038. ;-)

@drskyskull I suddenly found myself scrolling through Sandler’s filmography, desperately trying to think of a good parody film name for a pic in which a physicist finds himself trapped in an otherwise standard Sandler film.

I came up empty. Too jet-lagged right now. But I invite the fediverse to succeed where I failed!

@lxo Sharing such things is hard, but as I was reminded by a colleague the other day, how will others see themselves in us unless we show a little of ourselves?

@lxo You are most welcome.

Even though I am aware that I am clearly part of the historical majority in physics - White and male - I have come to realize lately that this shouldn’t (self-)trivialize my own struggle with #imposterism. My journey is my own, and for specific reasons tied to my own history.

It’s also fueled by a feature of any majority in any situation … given time, a majority tends to “eat its own”. Despite success, historically majorities often destroy from within. It took me a long time to recognize this.

Since 1 of my conversations this week was about #imposterism - the looming sense that you’re a phoney and eventually everyone will figure it out and the Ph.D. police take away your degree - I though I would reshare my recent blog post about my personal struggles with this psychological phenomenon.

Many trained professionals with solid records nonetheless wrestle with it. Each story is different. Here is part of mine.

https://steve.cooleysekula.net/blog/2023/08/27/taup-journal-day-zero/