Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Centre for Complexity Science

Conor Finn


I am currently an MSc student in the Doctoral Training Centre in Complexity Science here at the University of Warwick.

Background

I was born in county Mayo in Ireland, but I grew up in Dublin. I completed my undergraduate degree which was a B.Sc. (Hons) in Theoretical Physics in University College Dublin from 2008-2012.
  • My final year mini-project was on "Chaotic Control Theory Applied to the Chirikov Standard Map" (PDF Document) which I completed under the supervision of Dr. Edward Cox.
I also completed a postgraduate M.Sc. in Simulation Science in University College Dublin from 2012-2013. This degree program was previously known as Computational Science which would be commonly referred as Scientific Computing here in the U.K. This also involved spending some time at UCD's Complex & Adaptive Systems Laboratory.
  • My summer-long thesis was on "The Numerical Evaluation of the Spin-Weighted Spheroidal Harmonics and their Eigenvalues via a Relaxation Method" (PDF Document) which was completed under the supervision of Prof. Adrian Ottewill.

Interesting Reading

What I find interesting may not interest you, so as above, consider yourself forewarned...

  • Prof. L. N. Trefethen - from Oxford's Numerical Analysis Group - has an interesting list of essays and musings on the general theme of numerical analysis. Some of them are fun; some of them are quite informative; most of them are interesting! In particular, his article on the history of numerical analysis is worth a read.

  • Coming from a physics backgound, I am overly fond fitting lines to data and more generally, just being a bit sloppy when it comes to statistical analysis of data. Rants like this one are making me see the errors of my ways.
  • If the restrictive licensing was not enough to put you off, then here is a not so insubstantial list of reasons not to use any of the libraries that accompany the book 'Numerical Recipes'. The book itself is good once it is used within its bounds of applicability - that is, it is a book on numerical computation in the sciences, but not a book on numerical analysis or computational science.
  • A critique of Stephen Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science".
396785_2973004423507_295725046_n.jpg

Email

c dot j dot finn at warwick dot ac dot uk