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Comment by ccity88 | Hacker News Reader

Iris Alexandra's twitter is especially enthralling. Seems like so much discoveries and innovation happens from computer science to physics, chemistry and biology all from people with anime profile pictures.

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Highlighting this tweet in particular:

> Here's a chunk of pyrolytic graphite on the same magnet with the same stick. Even with less density and more surface normal to field.... It doesn't lift off. If it's diamagnetism it's a fucking absurdly strong one

https://twitter.com/iris_IGB/status/1685804254718459904

Her findings, and suggestions of manufacturing process improvements, are very interesting.

Seems silly to compare to that absolute chunk of pyrplytic graphite. Shouldn't it be a similar size spec?

AFAIK the chunk will levitate irrespective of size up to some maximum. Diamagnetism is a property of the material, not the shape.

https://twitter.com/iris_IGB for those looking for the account.

I'm watching all of this unfold as an unknowledgeable bystander. I'm at a loss for half of the technical terms and have no clue how many of those people are just LARPing.

But the positive energy of this all is very refreshing. This is what the internet was made for and I'm glad I can take part of it even if only by contributing moral support.

There's a certain subset of people on the intersection of high IQ, high-functioning ASD and LGBT that produces a lot of high impact activity in STEM fields.

Well I mean at this point, if I think I'm sitting on a big discovery the first thing I'm doing is changing my avatar to an anime one.

High-functioning LGBT for sure

Do you have a point or did you just feel like inserting your homophobia?

What homophobia?

LGBT is not strongly correlated to diminished executive function.

There is no comma between ASD and LGBT, so I would assume that user is making an "eats, shoots and leaves" type joke where the humor comes from the concept of high functioning LGBT rather than an already existing assumption that sexuality and gender directly affect one's functions

I think there's also an aspect of doing it and presenting it in an unusually attention-grabbing way.

I heard from a psychologist that homosexuality is associated with higher creativity (possibly explaining why it wasn't eliminated through evolution/natural selection). That seems true in art anyway, but I am not sure if in science the flamboyant online profiles simply make them more memorable characters or if the association holds.

> anime profile pictures

Either that or furry ones. Amusing apparent correlation.

I hope we get a video from Iris proving it's not glued to the support, if they were able to produce a levitating grain that's amazing. Regardless if superconducting or not.

That's a small enough sample that static electricity alone could explain the "levitation".