Hi, I'm Thomas, I'm doing a masters in theoretical physics at St John's College Cambridge. I am a big fan of open-source philosophy, so I mainly made this site to host my course notes so feel free to check them out. You can also check out my github page here. I am an aspiring Theoretical Cosmologist and applying to a PhD next year somewhere...
For a full explanation of my past research please see my research page. Or click on the image to see an example of my work. Over the last few years I have learned a lot of physics, but my research interests have all come to be related to cosmology, primarily Dark Energy but also other topics including modifications of GR, inflation and quantum gravity in general.
I am interested in Cosmology as I believe it is the best testing ground for fundamental physics. The field is also entering a new age, akin I feel to the 'particle zoo era' of the late 1940's/50's. We have many ongoing and future planned cosmology experiments that are tearing cracks in our best cosmological models. This is a very exciting period and I am very interested to see how our work to make sense of these problems will give us new insights into fundamental physics.
The ultimate goal of studying cosmology in my view, is to use it to probe Quantum Gravity, which over the last 50 years has solidified itself as the largest hole in our knowledge of physics. Our attempts so far have not been successful and there is no clear way forward. I am interested in approaches to quantum gravity that have phenomenological implications particularly in Cosmology. Most of my experience is with Causal Set Theory, which is a discrete approach to quantum gravity that posits space time to be made of 'atoms'. Causal Set Theory has a very natural explanation of Dark Energy as I outlined in my part III seminar on the subject.
I am a big fan of Linux, particularly the Linux Mint distribution. I maintain a Raspberry pi 5 server (see my cardboard box set up to the right) and like to data hoard. I believe the Linux communities approach to open source software and ideas is highly effective and is something that should be sought after. I encourage anyone I can to try open source alternatives such as Linux, they offer so much upside and make technology enjoyable to use, something that is becoming increasingly rare in today's world.
Recently as part of my partaking of part III of the Mathematical Tripos I had the pleasure of giving a seminar to my fellow students. I chose to give this seminar on "Dynamical Dark Energy from Causal Set Theory" as it is an area I am deeply interested and one that is under-appreciated/not-known by many people. The causal set model of dark energy known as "Everpresent lambda" has become even more interesting with the recent news that the Cosmological constant is indicated to be dynamical, something that is inherently part of this model. In my talk I gave a break down of the problems with the cosmological constant and how causal set theory can ease these tensions.
The TPSA is a student led organisation based in Trinity College Dublin. The TPSA runs weekley seminars where students enter a collaborative space to discuss homework problems or ask physics questions of the older years. The association also hosts hackathons, faculty talks as well as workshops to help fellow students. Previously I was the associations treasurer as well as the PLANCKS Captain. I have produced a 6 part lecture series on general relativity (see my lectures page!) which is on the TPSA youtube channel , I also conducted an ”Introduction to LaTeX” talk, to introduce the younger students to the typesetting language.
As part of the TPSA I also had the great pleasure of being captain of the highly successful 2023/24 PLANCKS team. PLANCKS is a exam-based physics competition for bachelor’s and master’s students. I captained the team representing Trinity at the UK & Ireland preliminary in Surrey, where we qualified to represent Ireland at the final held in Dublin, Ireland.
