A repository of writing by Lachlan Marnoch - short stories, fantasy, science fiction, science fact, and adjacent opinions.
Coming into the research year of my Masters, I was full of uncertainty. If I was either naturally talented or highly motivated - preferably both, as it seems the scientists that surround me are - I knew that I could do it, could become a true scientist. For the previous six months or so I hadn't felt either.
Read MoreI love programming. There is little more satisfying than watching your hard-written program cascade into reality. It's the closest I've ever come to feeling like a god. However, this rarely - perhaps never - happens on the first try. I present the following as an example of the numerous frustrations that can encumber scientific research.
Read MoreMy name is Lachlan Marnoch, and I have just begun a PhD - the degree of a Doctor of Philosophy, an antiquated title from back when philosophy was anything that involved deep thinking about any topic. The specific flavour of thinking which I’ll be doing is on astrophysics. What that means is that I will use physics to try and make sense of information from the night sky. As with my Masters, I’ll be studying fast radio bursts - very brief, very mysterious bursts of radio waves originating from other galaxies. They’re pretty fascinating, and I’ll get to explaining more about them soon.
Read MoreVideo games, Beowulf, and prize-winning books: the three essays I'm least ashamed of from university.
Read MoreI’m Lachlan Marnoch, and I’m on my way to a PhD in astrophysics. What this means is that I’ll be spending the next three years researching a very specific scientific niche, and then composing a monstrous piece of writing that describes all of the useful work that I’ve done. Tune in to this tale of discovery and human endeavour, and I'll fill you in on my experiences, the science of what I’m studying, and how many tears I've shed along the way.
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