Tony Vladusich

I'm a computational neuroscientist & software engineer. Colors, photos, brains, nature, science, software & chess, preferably all at the same time!

Author of The Appearance of Things: How the Principle of Relativity Shapes Our Visual World

My Book: The Appearance of Things: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HCVLM6T9
Publications: https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=IrVz6ewAAAAJ&hl=en

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relay.primal.net

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relay.damus.io

Author Public Key

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Last Notes

2026-08-17 10:35:33 GMT

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"Psychologists have a name for this tendency to think we understand things better than we do: the “illusion of explanatory depth.”"
I find this deeply ironic, having just written a book showing how the field of psychology itself "thinks" it understands psychology but does not really understand psychology.

2026-02-03 23:21:38 GMT

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Is Google paying you?

2026-01-10 00:19:47 GMT

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Poor Voight!
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/867/935/293/924/938/original/c1edc8d8e6cae24d.png

2025-12-21 21:13:47 GMT

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You thinking of this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristica_universalis

2025-12-14 12:20:55 GMT

I discovered this effect while tinkering around: I perceive vertical lines between the black and white disks, but only in my peripheral vision.
Edit: Updated with a stronger version.
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/115/717/907/680/177/720/original/8eee36138210463d.png

2025-11-11 04:33:12 GMT

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So what is the standard thinking about the meaning of the blow-up of the Lorentz transform as an inertial frame approaches the speed of light? It’s just a physical impossibility? If so, how do massless particles like photons figure in this picture? Or is special relativity only strictly applicable to massive particles?
Apologies if these are dumb questions. I mostly just have dumb ones so that’s what you get …

2025-10-24 10:01:15 GMT

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I finally got around to watching the video. It's fantastic! I like the "fun course" approach. It provides me with an ideal illusion of understanding 🤣. Keep it up!

2025-10-23 09:30:30 GMT

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Do mean free electrons in vacuum? It would seem weird for a free electron to emit a photon because such emissions usually involve energy transitions across orbits on the atomic shell, right?

2025-10-08 21:10:00 GMT

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In our own universe in this case!

2025-08-19 03:24:30 GMT

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Do we know that dark matter will actually behave in the same way as matter wrt black holes?

2025-07-09 12:27:01 GMT

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The guitar in Slug always sounded a bit like the U2 instrumental 4th of July from unforgettable fire.
https://youtu.be/KI7by4NOwV0

2025-07-01 09:22:46 GMT

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🙄

2025-05-06 01:01:48 GMT

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Well said, John!
Does the academic funding system have issues? Shit yes.
Is the answer privatisation? Fuck no!

2025-05-04 07:52:36 GMT

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"meta-methamatical" 🤣, indeed, I think a lot of meth was involved!

2025-05-04 06:38:54 GMT

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Well, in that case, John, you are not gonna like these rings! Each pair in left and right are physically identical.
Parenthetically my research suggests that this weirdness is related to natural perception of metallic surfaces.
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/114/448/176/714/016/620/original/06d11e035d71f3df.jpeg

2025-05-04 06:20:51 GMT

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🤣 Fixed, thanks! Yup, communication is hard enough already without typos.

2025-05-04 06:07:50 GMT

Simultaneous contrast (from local edges) and assimilation (from remote edges) induced into physically identical grey rings.
I made two attempts to adjust the intensity of the ring not the right to match the appearance of the ring on the left.
Both increasing and decreasing the intensity of the right ring leads to poorer matches to my eye/brain.
Which of the three right rings matches best for you? And how good is the match on a scale of 1-10, 10 being "identical" and 1 being "as different as black and white"?
https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/114/448/062/002/493/017/original/6512705449bdc57e.png

2025-04-23 20:34:09 GMT

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Sounds idyllic! It’s great that folks like you are doing things like this. Very inspiring!

2025-02-26 02:00:00 GMT

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So AI is what you’d like to be working on?