Meet Mileva: Our Newest Physicist
How a new 'cloaking device' protects your tech, plus a final series wrap-up and a special family update.
The phrase, ‘cloaking device’ is about as sci-fi as it gets. And yeah, the authors who submitted the tech might be guilty of a little clickbait spin in the title. But what you may not realize is that a magnetic cloaking device is something that’ll likely impact all of us at some point — and in a really positive way.
Magnetic Fields: the scourge of modern society
They’re everywhere. And they can disrupt your life in any number of ways. If your electronics aren’t ‘hardened’ against them, magnetic fields can utterly wreck your laptop, your smartphones, and the stripe on the back of your bank or credit card.
While those are minor inconveniences, some things aren’t. In fact, magnetic interference can be downright dangerous. They can wreak havoc on very sensitive laboratory and hospital equipment, the power grid, and aerospace systems.
So creating a cloaking device that diverts incoming fields around an object so perfectly that the magnetic environment remains undisturbed is a big deal. And that’s exactly what a team of engineers at the University of Leicester have done.
Click on the image above, or on this link here to read all about it.
Don’t miss the epic conclusion! 🎧
The wait is finally over—BD3: Insurrection is officially live on Audible. Narrated by the incredible Tom Taylorson, this final chapter brings the Battlefield Diplomacy saga to an explosive end.
If you have any holiday credits burning a hole in your pocket, now is the perfect time to finish the journey.
(NOTE: Some of the links in this newsletter are affiliate links, which means I get a few pennies off any sale if you choose to buy…)
Welcome, Mileva!
As you may or may not know, we are a family of physicists and engineers. And one of the ways in which this manifests is through the naming of pets. Fifteen years ago, we brought home two kittens and named them Faraday and Maxwell. You might recognize those as scientific terms—Faraday Rotation, Maxwell’s Equations. Those terms (and our cats) were named after the scientists who discovered them: Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell.
We lost Maxwell in August (I posted about him here). Faraday’s still around… and he’s a little pissed.
Because right before the holiday, we brought home Mileva (‘Millie’ for short).
Mileva’s a 4-year-old rescue, and she’s named after Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Marić. Marić was a Serbian physicist and mathematician, one of the first women to study these subjects at a university level in Europe. Many modern historians view her as Einstein’s most important intellectual partner during the formative years of his career.
In early letters to Mileva, Einstein frequently used phrases like "our work on relative motion" or "our theory," suggesting he viewed their scientific pursuits as shared. Their son, Hans Albert, recalled seeing his parents work together on scientific problems late into the evening. Some scholars argue that her strong mathematical background likely helped Einstein navigate the complex calculations required for his theories.
Right now, the only calculations our Mileva has made are the kind that map a trajectory from her position to Faraday’s tail. (We hope that her mathematical prowess might graduate to things a little less provocative in the future).
Wishing you an enjoyable holiday season, a happy new year, and all the best in 2026. And again, thanks for taking time out of your day to stop by the Speakeasy.
Fair skies & tailwinds,
L.L. Richman
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