In science, as in all activities, sometimes you learn more than you are aware of while carrying them out. Keeping your eyes open as you go can be an incredibly valuable way to garner extra knowledge… as in this case example, where collaborating on a paper led to me pondering handovers, organisational risk, and how to strategically manage groups to mitigate that risk. Continue reading Musings on handover through nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond.
Lessons from writing my first paper
Now that I’m supervising students of my own, who are writing their first papers, I think it’s timely that I reflect on some of the things I learned from mine — whether the easy way, or the hard way… Continue reading Lessons from writing my first paper
What I mean by general fitness…
Several years ago, a friend of mine came back to Melbourne for a visit. At the time, he’d recently been on Australia’s national squad for long-track ice skating, narrowly missing out on representing the country at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, and he’d transitioned into coaching the Danish junior team.
Knowing that he not only had first-hand experience of elite-level training, but that his inquisitive nature and University education in science and mathematics meant that he would have investigated the sports science behind the training, over a beer and some dinner, I asked what his prescription for a “general fitness” training routine might be. Continue reading What I mean by general fitness…
My doctoral thesis (part II)
Last time I described the silicon portion of my thesis, and skimmed over the diamond bits. Here is a bit about them… Continue reading My doctoral thesis (part II)
My doctoral thesis (part I)
What was my thesis about? (The TL;DR version)
Well, to put it baldly (badly?), I was looking at what happens when you make defects in a semiconductor crystal – and specifically (for four chapters), what happens if you do so in particular high-density regular arrays. Now, while that is a wonderfully compact description for someone who already knows what I did or is in my field, it is utterly woeful for anyone who doesn’t have some very particular background knowledge. Let me tell you part of the story… Continue reading My doctoral thesis (part I)