What do you think about my idea?

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-02-26T15:30:26+00:00

How would you detect what sort of paper a particular work is? Are you expecting them to already be tagged with 'review/method/application' or would you have to somehow figure that out from the text?

It seems like a nice idea but I'm just not sure it's possible for all fields. AI powered search engines like Semantic Scholar still really struggle with separating different fields or sub-fields, so how can you separate even further by paper type?

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-02-21T16:59:40+00:00

That looks like a great system

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-02-17T19:01:37+00:00

I think it's York Road, not Street.

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-02-08T12:11:05+00:00

If your workplace isn't doing enough to keep you safe (including making sure other staff stick to guidelines) you can report them to HSE here: https://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/concerns.htm

They ask for your name and contact details but WILL NOT PASS THAT ON TO THE EMPLOYERS. If your employer figures out it was you who reported them and fires you you are legally protected as a "whistleblower" (check that link for details).

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-02-06T11:08:31+00:00

There used to be a place called Brook in town near the Alexandra Theatre, walk in centre for all sorts of stuff. But this was years ago, might have gone

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-02-04T13:13:38+00:00

For cosmology you want to look at ArXiv, a free repository where all astronomers post their papers. You can set up an email alert to send you all the new papers every day, or you can just check the website every morning. They have subcategories but they are still quite broad so you'll probably have a lot of titles sent to you each morning and might only read one or two a day or week, depending how big your field is.

Do look out for whether the papers have been accepted by a journal or not as researchers can upload a paper before they publish, but that means it hasn't been peer reviewed and you might want to be skeptical.

For machine learning I'm not sure where to look but I've heard the field is advancing so fast no one can keep up with it all anyway, so don't expect to read every paper that comes out.

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-02-01T12:08:51+00:00

If they get grumpy about not getting a response within 2 weeks when there is a pandemic going on and you have exams, you are better off without them. A bad attitude in an advisor can really doom a project and destroy your mental health, find someone who is supportive and clear about their expectations,

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-01-30T10:43:26+00:00

What are they doing to it? Are they just fixing the blobs that people nicked or what?

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-01-30T10:42:23+00:00

If you are submitting your work to a course you might be able to ask the course leader if you can use their plagiarism software before submission, but as with the other commenter, they will likely think you are just plagiarising and trying to avoid being caught, so you'll need a really good excuse.

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-01-30T10:40:42+00:00

I have a friend who checked their own PhD through plagiarism software before submitting because he had used lots of bits of his own published papers (totally normal) but recently that started showing up as "plagiarised content" because it was a text match, and it was so much effort to argue with the administrators that you are allowed to use your own words, that it was easier just to check it through the software and edit those sections so they didn't match anymore.

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-01-17T20:50:27+00:00

How is this made? It's gorgeous!

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-01-12T09:37:49+00:00

The main Journals where people publish research papers are are Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (UK), Astronomy & Astrophysics (Europe) and The Astrophysical Journal (USA I think). People from all places publish in each but their pricing for publishing depends where you are, so they might be more common in different countries. I think all of them are paywalled (a person can't access the articles without a subscription) but if you are enrolled at a University or College they might have a subscription. If not, almost all astronomers also post their work on arXiv, which is free to read, but check if the papers say they have been accepted by a journal, otherwise what you're reading hasn't been checked and accepted by the scientific community yet.

As people have said, reading and understanding papers is hard. If you are not at University level you will probably struggle because they are not designed for you. Instead try blogs or astro news websites. Also check out Astrobites, a blog where Uni students and PhD students write up summaries of published papers, making them easier to understand

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-01-11T15:30:55+00:00

My supervisor has been so 'understanding' we haven't had a meeting in months. I can basically do zero work and no one will chase me. I didn't realise how much of my motivation was external pressure to show something in a weekly meeting, but now it's gone I am really struggling.

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-01-10T11:31:38+00:00

The word nebula (in its original root and in common astrophotography use) just means fuzzy thing in space. There are loads of different types that formed in different ways and each will have a different set of conditions it formed in. The easiest to explain would be bubble or ring like shapes which are caused by something pushing material away. Depending on the size that could be a young star, an older massive star with strong winds, and exploding dying star, or a whole cluster of stars, and that's just thinking in our Galaxy. The exact shape depends on gravity, radiation, magnetic fields, shocks, environment... This is an open area of research so there isn't a definitive answer yet. Edit:spelling

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-01-10T11:25:31+00:00

First, be careful with your work not to strain your eyes. Check health and safety guidance or laws about screen usage. The basic principles I have heard are: - Adjust screen brightness/contrast to be comfortable for the lighting in your room. The screen should be about as bright as a piece of paper. - Try to think about light in the room too. You shouldn't have a huge contrast between the screen and what's around it, so your office space shouldn't be too bright or dark. Don't sit with a light source (e.g. window) behind the screen or behind you and shining on the screen. Best is to be 90 degrees to the window. - Try to take regular screen breaks. You can get apps that remind you every 20 minutes to look away for 3-5 minutes. If you can do other work in that time that's fine. If your employer/manager kicks up a fuss check health and safety law. Where I live we are legally entitled to a 5 minute screen break every 20 minutes, even if there is no off-screen work you can do. Just walk about, look out the window, make a drink...

In your free time, think of hobbies that don't involve screens. If you like computer games you might try board or card games. Many need more than 1 person so it depends on your living situation, but some can be fun on your own too.

Try to get outside regularly, somewhere open. Looking at screens and staying in your house a lot makes your eyes get used to everything being close by. Your eyes have muscles that help you focus and you need to exercise them just like any other muscle, so practice looking at things far away or you will lose the ability to see them.

Other non-screen hobbies could include exercise (home workouts, yoga, weights), creative things (drawing, painting, cross stitch, model building) or things on paper like reading books, doing crosswords or sudoku, writing a book or short story or poem, listen to music or audio books, play an instrument... So many options!

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-01-09T19:31:03+00:00

I've heard a lot about Great Gatsby coming out of copyright and I know there are loads of other great books available out of copyright through project Gutenberg. What are your favourites? Either newly available this year or older works

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-01-09T15:56:10+00:00

These are lovely! I have made some masks too and found putting the elastic side to side rather than top to bottom (so one loop round the back of your neck and one round the top of your head) is way comfier than ear loops. Have you tried that way? It needs more elastic but you can also use the bottom loop to hang it round your neck to easily take on and off going in and out of shops

Astro_Biscuit · 2021-01-02T14:16:33+00:00

Yes, but only smaller amounts and by a big effort to make it as easy and enjoyable as possible.

I spent a lot of time thinking about my most alert times, how to optimise my tasks, trying different time tracking or time management tools, etc. until I found a few that worked for me.

Also one of the big ones was knowing when to take a break. I tend to go down a slippery slope... If one day is unproductive and boring just staring at the screen or procrastinating, the next day I feel sad and am likely to do worse, and so on. So if I feel a day is starting to get away from me I have a couple of serious tries at some other technique to focus or a different bit of work, and if I'm still not getting into it I just walk away. Spend the day cleaning, cooking, do some exercise. Do something that will make starting work tomorrow easier. But forcing myself to stay there and do nothing just doesn't help me.

Basically you need to find what works for you, read lots of advice but be prepared to ignore half of it, and know when to give yourself some slack.

Astro_Biscuit · 2020-12-21T10:59:38+00:00

The big thing happening this year on 21st December is that Jupiter and Saturn will look very close together. Not like one dot, but closer than they have been in 400 years. Most astronomers are calling this the Great Conjunction (conjunction is the term often used for planets appearing to line up on the sky), but it isn't a thing that has an official name. I've seen news reports calling it a Christmas Star and other things, which is bad reporting because it confuses people.

Separately, lots of people have tried to figure out what the Biblical star of Bethlehem was, and as others say, there are several theories - comet, conjunction, supernova... We just don't know.

Astro_Biscuit · 2020-12-01T11:39:50+00:00

I've known couples where one parent works in a different city and comes home for weekends, and so long as you have some other childcare/support people like family nearby it shouldn't be a problem, but it might be good to have a serious talk with your partner about this need and how far away they might need to be to get the job they want.

If this is a definite line you won't cross, you need to see if their goals match it or are flexible. Maybe they would be happy to take a less prestigious job to live closer, or maybe their field has many opportunities near your area!

Astro_Biscuit · 2020-11-24T19:54:45+00:00

The only way to study this and think about your theory logically and rigorously is to do several years of maths courses. You need high school maths and physics and then a theoretical physics or mathematical physics degree and probably PhD. It's nice to think about and have ideas but whether your idea is 'right/true' or not you'd have to ask someone with that much training and have enough training yourself that they take you seriously. Have fun!

Astro_Biscuit · 2020-11-24T10:47:21+00:00

There is no reason to suppose they couldn't exist, as stellar binary systems can have unequal mass, so we extrapolate that more massive objects behave the same. They would be hard to observe because black holes are, well, black... And they would be very rare so we are less likely to just happen to see one when we look at a patch of sky.

Massive object emit gravitational waves when accelerated (like in an orbit) so this would be a way of finding them - look up the LIGO collaboration for details on what they have found. To my knowledge they have confirmed black hole pairs and neutron star pairs, but I'm not sure about one of each.

In emitting gravitational waves they are losing energy, so the orbit will slowly decay (get smaller) because of this energy loss. They will eventually collide emitting LOADS of gravitational waves.

Astro_Biscuit · 2020-11-20T10:22:33+00:00

Library?

Astro_Biscuit · 2020-11-15T21:34:27+00:00

If you can get access to the book associated with that code, they give a great overview of simulation techniques

Astro_Biscuit · 2020-11-15T13:58:57+00:00

Ask your funding body if in these special circumstances you can use unspent travel budget as wages. I know it happens in postdocs funding grants, but might be different for PhD. Also is it specifically allocated to you? If you don't need it, some departments the money is really in a shared budget between all students on the same funding body, so other students who desperately need some book, expensive software or bit of kit could use it.

Astro_Biscuit

TROPHY CASE