Profile
David Whitworth
Dang it! Destroyed another galaxy
My CV
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Education:
Open University and University of Manchester
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Qualifications:
GCSE’s, A-Levels, BSc in Chemistry, BSc in Astrophysics, MSc(res) in Astrophysics
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Work History:
Schools in Japan, High Schools in England as a science and maths teacher, Aviva customer services, Marsh Insurance Brokers,
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Current Job:
PhD student at University of Manchest in JBCA
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About Me:
I am a PhD student who likes to roll around in the mud
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I play rugby at the weekends so am usually a little broken and sore. During the week I either train rugby, go to the gym or play board games. A bit of a geek, love sci-fi and fantasy and playing rpgs and board games. I used to live in Tokyo, was there for just over 7 years, I seem to have forgotten a lot of Japanese recently and can only just hold a conversation and my reading of Japanese is truly awful! I am also a bit of an old school metalhead, I love music and especially heavy metal.
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I am about 6 months into my PhD which will last about 3.5years. During this time I am hoping to simulate the evolution of a dwarf galaxy, a dwarf galaxy is about half the size of the Milkway, to see how stars are formed and where they are formed. In galaxies stars are formed in molecular clouds, or what are more commonly known as stellar nurseries or nebula, picture a (part of the Carina Nebula). We want to see how these clouds form from the interstellar medium (the gas that makes up a galaxy), and how things like supernova effect their shape and star formation rate. When we run the simulations on supercomputers we get to look at different times during the evolution and at different environments. In picture b you can see a galaxy at 92 Million years old where we are looking at the density distribution of the gas, and in picture c you can see the same galaxy at 117 Million years old where we are looking at the temperature of the gas. The next few graphs are ways that we analyze the data and see how the chemistry behaves and if we are doing the right things in the simulation.
a) b) c) d) e)f) g)
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My Typical Day:
Gym, uni, code, eat, rugby, sleep!
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If I am not doing rugby in the evening I try to go to the gym in the morning. I find this helps me wake up and be a little more prepared for bashing and hacking code, and just generally not getting things to work properly. After gym I go straight to university where as I said I butcher coding, make endless gifs and plots of my simulations to see if things have worked, a fair amount of coffee is consumed in this process. In the evenings I am either at rugby, or playing board games to try and forget the horror that is coding. I also spend a lot of time going to gigs, big or small, but always heavy!
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What I'd do with the prize money:
For PhD students and researches to visit schools to show a more fun side to science
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Geek, metalhead, viking(?)
What did you want to be after you left school?
I first wanted to be an architect, then some form of chemist.
Were you ever in trouble at school?
No comment ;p
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Myrkur (the lady who sings to cows in youtube)
What's your favourite food?
Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake)
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
To be able to do my research in Japan, to never have to pay for anything, to be the worlds best programmer
Tell us a joke.
Why should you never trust an atom? They make up everything
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