When I moved to St Andrews as a long-haired, clean-shaven 17-year-old, it wasn’t to embark on a career as a quantum theorist – my degree was originally to be in astrophysics. For two years, I was an astrophysics student, before eventually ditching space in favour of quantum physics. There were two main reasons for this.… Continue reading Seeing Into The Quantum Heart of Matter
One of the biggest problems with researching quantum mechanics is that it’s often hard to visualise what we’re dealing with. Are we talking particles, or are we talking waves? Or are we talking about abstract excitations of a quantum field, somewhere between neither and both? For the most part, we focus on calculating properties that… Continue reading The Role of Disorder: Under the Microscope
Today is exactly one month since one of the best days of my PhD: the viva. Having had a month to come to terms with real life after 8 years of being a student, I wanted to write something about my viva experience. This isn’t a how-to or a guide or anything of the sort… Continue reading The Best Defence Is…
It’s been a long time since I last blogged. A long, long time. For the last six months or so, I’ve felt like I was using up all of the words in the world on writing my thesis and just didn’t have any left to spare for this slightly neglected blog of mine. But now… Continue reading Ravings Borne of Thesis Madness
Broken Symmetry 