Why would someone who wants to be taken seriously as a scientist pose in front of something like that?
It's a staged picture, but most hero shots are. I'd say this is worse than most, but not by much. Check out the rest from the series:
https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=career-q-and-a
Also, pretty sure she's leaning into the "Mrs. Frizzle" vibes.
The central equation on the whiteboard is actually the Drake equation [0] which as per TFA is the subject of her next book. So it at least is directly relevant.
The photographer needs a nice photo, she needs the article to sell books and not get traped again in the ivory tower. Eveyone is happy. It's part of the job. Like politician using a suit and smiling. (Aparently smiling people with suits don't steal or start random wars.)
I looked at the equations, they look correct but so unrelated that made me chuckle. I imagine she was chuckling while writing them. I'm not sure if there were one or two persons writing that, probably one (but two persons writing random (correct) equations is more fun).
The equations have a nice flow, the space/kerning and vertical aligment are correct. It looks like whoever wrote them understand the equations. [1] It's not a proof that she is a genius, but it's small bonus point for me.
The last "2" in a^2+b^2=c^2 is too low, it looks like she made a mistake guessing the space necesary to write the equation and had to make a emergency correction. It happens to the best. Anyway, it's horriblely unrelated to the other equations [chuckling], almost trolling.
If I have to guess, she first wrote the Drake equations as a sibling comment says, it's in the center and very well written. The photographer asked for more equations, so she added the gravitational force equation. Then another and another. And then some equations in between.
It's very difficult to write something meaningful on the spot. I'd need like 15 mitutes to thing what to write and perhaps another 15 to write it. So a random wall of equations is silly but difficult to avoid.
[1] A few years ago we had two exams that were identical. One of them had a similar good flow, but the other had the same numbers/symbols in almost the same position, but they were horrible aligned, like if someone just copy the number/symbols without understanding anything at all.
From left to right then top to bottom:
1. No idea. Based on the E sub λ, the use of Planck's and Boltzmann's constants, and the e^(hc/λkt)-1 I'd guess its the energy of something at wavelength λ and temperature t. I don't recall ever seeing energy have a factor of 1/λ^5 before college was over 40 years ago so I might have forgotten.
2. Momentum change required to change the speed of a mass by Δv?
3. No idea on the one for dt/dλ. Nothing from the left appears explicitly on the right.
On to the second row.
4. Pythagorean theorem.
5. No idea.
Next row
6. The Drake equation.
7. Definition of average velocity.
Next row.
8. Position of free falling object in a 1 g uniform gravitational field in a vacuum.
Next row.
9. Something thermodynamic.
10. Newton's law of gravity.
11. Looks like half of this is blocked by her head, but given that it is next to Newton's law of gravity, and has 8 Pi G in it which also appears in general relativity a lot, and that it has on the right side the ratio of jerk to acceleration (assuming a is acceleration), I'm going to guess something to do with relativistic gravity.
Next row.
12. No idea.
13. The most famous equation in the world.
14. Newton's second law.
15. Too much is cut off.
Final row.
16. Seems to be calculating the ratio of successive terms of some sequence. Partly cut off but can see Planck and Boltzmann constants so guessing we are back at thermodynamics. I'll go out on a limb and guess it has something do with entropy.
16. Too much is cut off.
3. Laplacian in spherical coordinates???
5. Conservation of energy in fluids. Preasure P + Kinetic 1/2 ρ v^2 + Potential ρ g h = ...
9. Probably something about a blackbody radiation like 1.
11. I agree it's related to gravity, but I'm not sure.
12. Velocity of an object a when there is constant aceleration "a" (for example with a constant force like friction) after it moved a distance Δx
15. Energy of photons when an electron changes the orbit in Hidrogen. (Is it the Bohr equation?)
16. No idea, or actualy too many ideas that make no sense.
17. Also, no idea, or actualy too many ideas that make no sense (it has G, T and h ¿¿¿Hawking radiation???)
1. Blackbody radiation per unit wavelength.
2. Momentum.
3. Not sure. Quantum harmonic oscillator? Orbital mechanics?
4. Pythagorean theorem.
5. Bernoulli's equation.
6. Drake equation.
7. Velocity.
8. Ballistic/projectile motion.
9. Blackbody radiation per unit frequency.
10. Newton's law of gravity.
11. One of the Freidman equations for cosmological expansion.
12. Velocity of an accelerating object over some distance.
13. Einstein's mass-energy equivalence. (The memorable half, at least.)
14. Newton's second law.
15. Not sure, but I have a feeling that's one of the terms of the Ricci curvature. Maybe the classical limit?
15E. Edit: Whoops, nope, it's the Rydberg constant from the Rydberg formula for atomic energy levels. (Thanks gus_massa!)
16. Not sure. Reminds me of population inversion, so I'd guess stable state population of some quantum transition.
17. Not a clue.
[1][9] https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/505909/frequency...
[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedmann_equations
[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy%E2%80%93momentum_relati...
[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricci_curvature
The whiteboard contains several famous physics equations. Here are the ones I can identify:
1. *Einstein's field equations (General Relativity):* \[ E = \frac{8\pi G}{3} \left( \rho + \frac{\Lambda}{8\pi G} \right) \] \[ R_{\mu\nu} - \frac{1}{2} R g_{\mu\nu} + \Lambda g_{\mu\nu} = \frac{8 \pi G}{c^4} T_{\mu\nu} \]
2. *Planck's law:* \[ E = h\nu \] \[ E = \frac{hc}{\lambda} \]
3. *Schrödinger equation (Quantum Mechanics):* \[ i\hbar \frac{\partial \psi}{\partial t} = \hat{H} \psi \]
4. *Lagrangian mechanics:* \[ L = T - V \] where \( T \) is kinetic energy and \( V \) is potential energy.
5. *Newton's law of universal gravitation:* \[ F = G\frac{m_1 m_2}{r^2} \]
6. *Friedmann equations (Cosmology):* \[ \left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)^2 = \frac{8\pi G}{3} \rho - \frac{k}{a^2} \]
7. *Coulomb's law:* \[ F = k_e \frac{q_1 q_2}{r^2} \]
8. *Boltzmann's entropy formula:* \[ S = k_B \ln \Omega \]
9. *Maxwell's equations (Electromagnetism):* \[ \nabla \cdot \mathbf{E} = \frac{\rho}{\epsilon_0} \] \[ \nabla \times \mathbf{B} - \mu_0 \epsilon_0 \frac{\partial \mathbf{E}}{\partial t} = \mu_0 \mathbf{J} \]
10. *The cosmological equation:* \[ \ddot{a} = -\frac{4 \pi G}{3} (\rho + 3p) a + \frac{\Lambda}{3} a \]
11. *Thermodynamic identity:* \[ dU = TdS - PdV \]
This collection of equations spans various domains of physics, including quantum mechanics, general relativity, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, and cosmology.
The only ones that got right are 5 and 6 that are 10 and 11 in the GP numbering. 5->10 was an easy one. 6->11 was one of the equations we coudn't identify, but ChatGPT got correctly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedmann_equations
She was probably asked to, knew that the photographer probably has a much better idea of what the publication wanted than she did, and so did what was asked.
She would not have worried about it making it hard to take her seriously because she almost certainly knows that everyone who she needs to have take her seriously has seen hundreds of similar articles with their accompanying similar photos and know how that works. Many have probably themselves been in "whiteboard of equations" shots or the also popular "in front of overstuffed bookshelf" shots.
They obviously aren't what you would find in any university class, where you do things like derivations and don't just write random formulas on the blackboard. So it is a staged picture just trying to show off to people who don't know any better.