SAM MORRELL

Astrophysics
Environmental Intelligence
Computer Science

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Dealing with Blank Lines Comments in Fortran READs

September 4, 2017

Just a quick little programming snippet today. When preparing data files, it’s often useful to include headers and comments in them, especially in the more complicated ones. Most data applications that you might be loading data into, such as maybe Python or MATLAB, have plenty of ability to filter out those comments, but what if...

Building the Light Pollution Matrix

February 9, 2024

Earlier this week, I had the privilege of recording an episode of a Restoring Darkness podcast with Michael Colligan and Mark Baker. The topics of our conversation ranged from light pollution activism, the role of the lighting industry in solving light pollution, and how we at the Environment and Sustainability Institute and Departments of Physics...

What I’ve Been Listening To – November 2016

December 3, 2016

There’s no mistaking it. 2016 is beginning to draw to an oh so welcoming close, not so much with a bang, but more of a turgid death rattle. The nights have drawn in to mid afternoon and the weather is as unpredictable as ever. It’s on evenings like this it’s nice to cuddle up by...

Beginning with BibTeX – Making Referencing in LaTex as Easy as Pi

August 14, 2016

[mathjax] It’s no secret that physicists love using LaTeX to write papers. This has many practical advantages, such as the ability to completely unlink your content from the formatting, very flexible layout tools and a veritable smorgasbord of packages to do everything from change the colour of your text to allow you to programmatically create plots...

An Undergrad Primer on Vectors

September 7, 2015

[Could not find the bibliography file(s) I wrote a post a while ago with my tips for people that are starting off a physics degree. Just after I published it a friend and fellow post graduate, Sam Cooper, pointed out to me that I made a fairly blaring omission in my summary of undergraduate physics. Vectors. I...

Tackling Internal Server Errors When Using Jade-PHP

July 13, 2015

I’m currently taking a break from the glitz and glamour of astrophysics and instead am working on various development projects I promised I’d do for people. My main experience with web development in the past couple years has been using the excellent combo of Node.js + Express + Jade + Stylus. This combo is great...

The Fluid Mechanics of Planetary Atmospheres

February 16, 2015

In my last post I went over a really powerful bit of physics called fluid mechanics, which describes the flow of fluid through a system. The main equation in this framework is the momentum equation; the Navier-Stokes equation.This equation is nye on impossible to solve analytically in it’s full grotesque glory, so in the last post I discussed some of...

6EQUJ5 – Decoding the Wow! Signal

December 11, 2014

Nothing quite spikes human interest like a good old fashioned mystery, and the the events at a radio telescope in Delaware, Ohio in 1977 could qualify as just that. The voluntary radio astronomer on duty, Dr. Jerry Ehman, noticed a signal that has gone down in history as one of the great puzzlers of the...

Dust in the Ointment

October 18, 2014

It’s nice every now and then to have a slight reminder why your work is valuable. At the moment I’m part of a research team, working in the astrophysics department at the University of Exeter,  that are studying dust. I know exactly what you’re thinking, how interesting can dust be? The truth is that interstellar...

Random Star Trek Trivia

November 13, 2011

Okay, I think it’s time for a geek out. Here goes. Since I am a massive geek of general sci-fi, and in particular the Star Trek form of sci-fi, time for a little trek related trivia post. The phrase ‘Beam me up Scotty’ was never, ever actually said in the original series, quite ironic seeing...

Happy Birthday @Voyager2!

August 17, 2010

If there’s one thing in modern society which I think is very much overlooked it’s the big black thing above us… no, not the clouds of doubt over the houses of parliament! I means space. Back in the heyday of space exploration everybody was excited about being the first into space, the first to the...

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