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Noise is the word that we use to describe all of the junk in our data that we wish wasn’t there. Maybe it was a windy day and our telescope was wobbling, or maybe there were a bunch of clouds overhead, or maybe the person operating the telescope was just having a really bad day.

Most of my work is all about understanding noise, and I’m in the process of writing a computer program that can do this really quickly.

I then use this program to analyse lots of cool data that other people have looked at and not been able to find anything. Right now, I’m looking at some measurements from a star called Aldebaran (which you can actually see at night!). I managed to confirm the existence of a big planet orbiting it, but I also was able to see evidence of the rippling of the surface of the star itself (something which no-ones seen before!)

Being a scientist usually means you can often work very flexible hours. I make full use of this and usually get up around 9.30, shower and walk to work, arriving around 10.30.

I then work my way through any admin I’ve got to do, emails and so on, before meeting some of my colleagues for 11 o’clock coffee! Here we usually talk about all kinds of things, but the conversation inevitably ends up back at physics, which is often a very helpful way of seeing your own problems from a different angle, and keeping in touch with what your friends/colleagues are working on.

Then I do an hour or so of work. Usually I start thinking really hard about what I want to achieve for the rest of the day, and how I might go about doing that. I might read some academic papers, or watch a tutorial online, or maybe chat with my colleagues some more about my ideas.

Then I go for lunch, typically sandwiches from the local shop (lazy, I know!), then back to the office for a solid 4-5 hour stretch of work. This is where the real work gets done for me!