SAM MORRELL

Astrophysics
Environmental Intelligence
Computer Science

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Web Development for Physicists

February 17, 2018

I’m fortunate enough to be sitting at the intersection of two disparate fields which are rapidly hurtling towards each other. More than ever, it’s becoming important to publicise you and your research, whether you’re in academia or in the private sector. Sooner or later, this is likely going to mean you’re going to requiring some...

Redesigning XRT-C

July 17, 2016

As some who read this may know I’m involved, well currently the project lead, on the Exeter Radio Telescope at Caradon (XRT-C) project. The idea behind this project is great; to build a professional grade, 4.5m radio telescope in the Cornish country side that can be used by students across the UK. Up until now,...

Using Wintersmith to Make Awesome Static Websites

December 3, 2015

For the last month or so, I’ve been deeply investing my spare time into writing a website for a conference, the UK Exoplanet Community Meeting 2016, or UKEXOM 2016 for short. Early on we decided that the best way to host it would probably be to use Amazon’s pretty nifty S3 service. This comes with...

My Top Tips for Preparing for a Physics Degree

August 10, 2015

You’ve just finished your A-levels, you say? Well done, I think you’ve earned a break so go on and enjoy it. However, I wouldn’t mind guessing that at some point in the next couple of months you’re going to get a little bit bored and might even start looking for something to do. If you’re kicking...

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...

University is Over… for Now

June 12, 2015

It is a momentous day for me and rest of the remaining class of 2011 of the University of Exeter’s physics department. Today was our last ever results day. It was also the day where I found out, to my eternal delight, that the last 4 years have yielded a masters degree in physics; an...

Some Fluid Mechanics Basics

January 23, 2015

At the moment I’m intently studying fluid mechanics for an exam on planetary science. As you may have guessed, the fluid mechanics in question is for modelling planetary atmospheres, but the mathematics is universally applicable. I’ve wanted to learn fluid mechanics for many years so I thought I’d just go through some of the basics...

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...

The Basics of Radiative Transfer

April 28, 2014

It’s deep in exam season for me at the moment, which means that if you try talking to me, chances are that I’ll have my head in a book. I talked a while back about solving radiative transfer problems with Monte Carlo methods, but I never actually went very far into how radiative transfer works....

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...

Chirp has a New Home

October 7, 2023

At the end of 2019, I posted about a little app that my colleagues and the University of Birmingham and I had been working on called Chirp — a web and iOS app for keeping track of the latest gravitational wave alerts. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down LIGO, and Chirp, but now it’s coming back...

The Great Conjunction 2020

December 7, 2020

It should no great surprise that 2020 has been a difficult year in academia. The inability to travel has made maintaining collaborations problematic, and the inability to carry out the majority of teaching in-person, despite being the catalyst for much innovation in the higher education space, has made traditional lecturing all but impossible. An unfortunate...

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