How I Finally Learned ML (and Why I Shouldn’t Have Waited) I first considered Machine Learning as something challenging yet feasible for me to learn when I attended the American Astronomical Society conference in Florida in 2016 and saw a fellow UIUC undergrad senior present research on Machine Learning in Cosmological Simulations. Partially because he had a reputation for prioritizing research…
I was recently interviewed for the Shine Bright Like The Firmament podcast, which is hosted by Madeline Shepley and features Catholics in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). In this episode I spoke about the different legs of my journey: first, my time discerning whether to become a priest, second, my time in physics that culminated in my Ph.D., and third, my time so far in…
I've spent several years teaching Physics and Astronomy in online schools that focus on classical education. But it wasn't until a little over a year ago when a friend asked me about combining classical and modern Astronomy that I started to think about it deeply. How would I teach an Astronomy course that included all the modern content while also serving the purpose of Astronomy as it was taught…
Because circumpolar constellations by definition never go below the horizon, classifying constellations as circumpolar is subject to one’s latitude. From the Equator no constellations are circumpolar, whereas from the North Pole all constellations above the horizon are also circumpolar. The constellations I’ve selected for this list are the closest ones to the North Celestial Pole, which I’ve…
I traveled across 2/3 of the country with my family to see the total solar eclipse, staying with many friends along the way. Our initial destination was Dallas. Two days before the eclipse, however, cloud cover models still forecasted lots of clouds over Texas. From Denver we pivoted our trajectory straight eastward instead of going any further south. Because it was no longer possible to find…
On April 8, 2024, the Moon will cover the Sun for a few minutes, as seen from a small strip of Earth spanning parts of Mexico, USA, and Canada. The Moon's shadow will sweep from southwest to northeast. Other regions of North America not in the direct shadow will still experience a partial solar eclipse, which is nothing at all like the experience of a total solar eclipse. The temperature will…
Although Summer nights can be short, at least it's warmer! If you're outside under a starry Summer sky (in the Northern Hemisphere), here are the constellations you can learn to identify. Note: All the images below are screenshots I took from the free Stellarium software. I have been using it for years and encourage you to download it too! 0. The Summer Triangle The Summer Triangle is as asterism…
Now that I’ve transitioned from teaching high schoolers during my PhD research years to working in industry, I’ve decided to make my lecture videos public. My course is from my perspective as a Catholic scientist and is divided in two halves: • The History of Astronomy • Modern Astronomy from our own Earth to the most distant objects in the Universe Here is the general link to the course playlist.…
I've been playing on Chess.com since late 2018. You can find me here or by searching for DoctorAragorn. I'm what you might call a serious hobbyist. After each game ends, a Chess.com engine classifies every move into one of the following categories: • Blunder : A very bad move that also loses material or the game. • Miss : A move that missed a tactical opportunity or a chance to punish the…
Imagine being able to generate a plot with only one line of code. After I had spent some time coding in Python and generating plots in Matplotlib, I decided to make some shortcuts for each time I wanted to see a simple plot. Although plot_assistant was born in 2017, I ve only recently stripped it down, [ ]