Pippa Wells

@pippawells.bsky.social

Physicist at CERN. Opinions my own. She/her.

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 4:54 PMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

Fab story from Margaret Hamilton, RIP, showing why Science-Mums are brilliant scientists! When innovating at the cutting edge of technology, it's so important to bring together a wide range of lived experiences. Sad that only ~20% comp-scientists are female 👩‍🔬🧪

ℹ️: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Right: A woman looking very cool in a 70's dress standing next to a massive pile of very thick books
Left text: Did your life as a software engineer and a mother ever collide?
Often in the evening or at weekends I would bring my young daughter, Lauren, into work with me. One day, she was with me when I was doing a simulation of a mission to the moon. She liked to imitate me – playing astronaut. She started hitting keys and all of a sudden, the simulation started. Then she pressed other keys and the simulation crashed. She had selected a program which was supposed to be run prior to launch – when she was already “on the way” to the moon. The computer had so little space, it had wiped the navigation data taking her to the moon. I thought: my God – this could inadvertently happen in a real mission. I suggested a program change to prevent a prelaunch program being selected during flight. But the higher-ups at MIT and Nasa said the astronauts were too well trained to make such a mistake. Midcourse on the very next mission – Apollo 8 – one of the astronauts on board accidentally did exactly what Lauren had done. The Lauren bug! It created much havoc and required the mission to be reconfigured. After that, they let me put the program change in, all right.

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 1:59 PMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

Extremely loud squeals of excitement chez-Heymans.... that is the actual CERN Director General holding a copy of my book in front of the actual LHC tunnel 🥰 🤩

Huge thanks to @pippawells.bsky.social for taking the book on a little site tour before it joins its friends on the CERN library shelves 🙏⚛️🔭

A bespectacled man in a suit (the CERN Director General Mark Thomson) with a large long tunnel behind him (the Large Hadron Collider Tunnel) is smiling holding a copy of "How to Design a Universe"

@pippawells.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 12:50 PM

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social your fabulous book has made it to the CERN library. We took it to see a plaque commemorating the invention of the WWW by Tim Berners-Lee, and by sheer luck also bumped into CERN Director General, Mark Thomson.

The book in the CERN library, in front of a show case with two Nobel Prize medals on display

The book in front of a plaque commemorating the birth of the World Wide Web at CERN

CERN DG Mark Thomson holding the book in front of a picture of the Large Hadron Collider tunnel

@hilzoy.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 6:06 PMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

Kieran Healy, on that tourism graph.

kieranhealy.org/blog/archive...

@moorejh.bsky.social Oct 1, 2026, 7:29 PMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

Who isn't in need of some good cable management? #scifi #startrek

@michaelspicer.bsky.social Sep 30, 2026, 9:06 AMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

Most TV is just this now.

@astrokatie.com Oct 1, 2026, 2:36 AMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

I went to Geneva a few weeks ago and spoke on a panel about the nature of time for a Geneva Watch Days event. While I was there, on a lark, I entered a competition to most precisely calibrate a Swiss watch. And today I found out that I won! 😃 www.instagram.com/reel/Dd6hUTB...

Me peering through a little magnifier at a tiny watch mechanism connected to some monitoring equipment, while making adjustments with a small screwdriver

@cern.bsky.social Sep 30, 2026, 12:50 PMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

First petals installed in the ATLAS Inner Tracker Strips Endcap 💫

A major milestone has been reached in the construction of the @atlasexperiment.bsky.social Inner Tracker (ITk), with the installation of the first nine ‘petals’ of the ITk Strips Endcap at DESY in Germany.

@pippawells.bsky.social Sep 29, 2026, 7:09 AM

Have you come across this cricket-related story? www.washingtonpost.com/business/201...

@pippawells.bsky.social Sep 22, 2026, 12:50 PM

Really sorry that you are having to deal with this

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Sep 20, 2026, 11:10 AMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

NASA picture of the day today is a real 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿beauty! This is a composite image of the ~5000yo Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis. The amazing Giuseppe Petricca has only gone and photographed the Sun at noon there, every few days, for a whole year. #Dedication 🔭🧪👌
ℹ️: science.nasa.gov/image-articl...

The imposing Callanish Stones stand talk with their shadows spanning out across the glass. It's a super clear sky, but looks cold. Above the central stone is a strange figure-of-8 shape of dots. This is the location of the Sun, at noon, on various different days across the year.

@davidallengreen.bsky.social Sep 20, 2026, 1:03 PMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

“Trump is the biggest arch villain.” - Why is that, Batman? “For he is the villain who wants the biggest arches.”

@patricknessbooks.bsky.social Sep 12, 2026, 4:59 PMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

I ran a marathon to raise money for MSF. Attacks on MSF and RNLI and Amnesty are what fascists literally do. They want to devalue all humane effort, all care for fellow man. These are dangerous, dangerous times.

Colin Murray@colinmurray.bsky.socialSep 12, 2026, 1:15 PM

A campaign for *MSF* to be banned as a terrorist group (on the paper thin basis of claims about 2 past employees) is the product of the UK Govt being willing to divorce any meaningful conception of societal threat from its use of proscription powers. Govt needs to wake up to the madness of this:

@pippawells.bsky.social Sep 12, 2026, 7:08 AM

Also this wonderful paper: arxiv.org/abs/1603.01204
(Read the acknowledgements too!)

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Sep 7, 2026, 7:50 PMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

#Edinburgh! What are you doing on Friday night?

Come to my book launch at Dynamic Earth!

There will be:
🍺 A bar
🎶 Music
💃 Dancing (well, I'll be dancing from all the excitement)
🪐 Planetarium 360 visuals
🧪 Science + a little bit of philosophy

🎟️: dynamicearth.org.uk/event/how-to...
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🔭

How to Design a Universe: Planetarium Show
Prof. Catherine Heymans Boos Launch
Readings and live music with Planetarium visuals.
Text on a cool pink version of the Andromeda Galaxy

@wearequeeraf.com Sep 6, 2026, 12:32 PMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

“The surgical referral rate for the Welsh Gender Service was actually lower than in England – and far below the ‘3x–4x national referral rate’ claimed by the right-wing media.”

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Sep 4, 2026, 6:59 AMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

'the Astronomer Royal for Scotland and a vocal critic of the cuts, called Burnham’s intervention “wonderful news” but said Jodrell Bank was a “high-profile casualty of a much larger funding crisis” that goes beyond particle physics and astronomy.'🧪⚛️🔭👩‍🔬 Vocal critic 🙋‍♀️ should print that on a ti-shirt👌

@pippawells.bsky.social Sep 2, 2026, 10:49 AM

... or how many times you paid for them?

@xkcd.com Sep 1, 2026, 10:49 PMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

Highway Signs

xkcd.com/3289/

Comic. [sign on road reads Next Exit: 1,390,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. The number on the speed limit sign in front of it is 0.000000097] [caption] Our local highway department is switching to planck units.

@astroroyalscot.bsky.social Sep 1, 2026, 12:37 PMReposted by @pippawells.bsky.social

That was a v fast-paced debate on the STFC funding cuts! Good things: * The minister did not trot out the infuriating "there are no cuts" line * Lots of MPs there passionately standing up for their constituents who are directly impacted * Everyone there seemed to genuinely love the work we do!

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.socialSep 1, 2026, 8:32 AM

Parliament returns from summer recess today, and the second debate in the House (13:00-13:30) is about the STFC funding cuts to fundamental physics & astro! I'll be watching on parliament TV and live-posting any gems, so you don't have to (you're welcome). 🍿: www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/...