The Ultimate* Cheat Sheet for Astrophysics Students

July 29, 2018 by Lachlan Marnoch in Ultimate Cheat Sheet, Non-Fiction

At some point during my undergraduate degree (Bachelor of Science in Astrophysics, with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing) I thought, "wouldn't it be cool if I collected all the physics and maths formulae I've learnt into a notebook?" This became three notebooks, then, when I realised how untidy they were getting, a LaTeX document. In the hope that others might find it useful, I decided to put it up here. Three years after it began, here it is!

The Story of the Universe and Me: The Solar System

May 03, 2015 by Lachlan Marnoch in Non-Fiction, The Universe and Me

Around five billion years ago, an average-sized white star swelled from the dust of a barred spiral galaxy. From the disc of remains that surrounded it, smaller bodies pulled together and fell into line around it, until it was orbited by a swarm of planets, from gas giants to tiny, rocky worlds.

Timey-Wimey Stuff - Time Travel (in fiction?) Part II

February 09, 2015 by Lachlan Marnoch in Non-Fiction, Fictional Science, Time Travel in Fiction

We usually think of time travel as purely fictional. Mostly, it is. Travel into the past is still considered impossible by most physicists, although there are exceptions (more on that later). However, travelling into the future is, with some help from Albert Einstein, perfectly plausible, as long as you have access to either a powerful gravitational field or a craft that can travel near the speed of light.