William G. Lamb 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
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astrolamb.bsky.social
William G. Lamb 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
@astrolamb.bsky.social
2K followers 1K following 150 posts
📡 NANOGrav Gravitational Wave Researcher
🔭 Astrophysics PhD Candidate, Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Siaradwr Cymraeg o Eryri
✍️ Writer - Astrobites.org
👽 US “Resident Alien”
🎓 Uni of York Alumnus
🐱 Dad of WiggleWorm
🏊🚲🏃Triathlete
💃 Swing Dancer
Posts Replies Media Videos
astrolamb.bsky.social
Just looking into the NASA FY2026 Request - anyone else notice that $2.2 BILLION is being cut from space science...

...in order to "put a MAN on Mars"???

They're not even trying to hide their sexism anymore.

🔭🧪#academicsky
www.nasa.gov/fy-2026-budg...
A row from a budget request report, subtitles "Cuts, Reductions and Consolidations." The first column says "Space Science," and the second column says "-2,265" which is the amount of money in millions USD$ being cut from Space Science. The third column has more details as to why they cut this amount, which includes reasoning to achieve the objective to "return to the Moon before China and putting a man on Mars [highlight my own]."
May 2, 2025 at 4:44 PM
astrolamb.bsky.social
AHHHHH! I won the award for @dgrav.org Best Student Presentation at the Gulf Coast Gravity Meeting this weekend in UMiss, Oxford MS 🏆

I didn't get a photo at the meeting, but here's a photo of me giving an earlier draft of this presentation at @apsphysics.bsky.social Global Physics Meeting 🔭🧪
A photo of me (right) presenting my work on poisson variance of the gravitational wave background spectrum (Lamb & Taylor 2024)
April 14, 2025 at 12:56 PM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Astrobiters at #APS2025! 🪐🔭

Just @briles34.bsky.social and myself hanging out with the puppies in the Exhibit Hall!

A big thanks to @apsphysics.bsky.social for supporting our work at @astrobites.bsky.social
Dr Briley Lewis (left) and William Lamb (center) in a dog pen, with a sleeping puppy on the ground between us Dr Briley Lewis petting a sleeping, black puppy
March 18, 2025 at 9:29 PM
astrolamb.bsky.social
"Good Security will insure that America remains the land of the free and the home of the brave."

Not the land of the Billionaires!

Before this website is lost, you can find these old posters here. Share them with your federal friends! (8/8)
www.wrc.noaa.gov/wrso/posters...
A painting of Mount Rushmore with a sunset background. Above are the words, "Good Security will insure that America remains the land of the free and the home of the brave"
February 6, 2025 at 1:19 AM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Vulnerable data is To Have and To Hold! Not share around with a billionarie and his rando 18-26 y/o boys... Don't share data with him. That's the patriotic thing to do! (7/8)
A soldier flying the American flag, with the words "To Have and To Hold" in the blank space beneath the soldier's arm and the flag. Below the poster is word "SECURITY" in yellow
February 6, 2025 at 1:19 AM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Know Wud I Mean, Vern? (6/8)
A photo of the character, Ernest, in a red shirt, whispering to the reader "Hey Vern! The Opposition is Always Listening. KnowWudIMean?" He sticks his thumb to a radio dish on a hill in the background. Above, the title "Ernest Goes Abroad"
February 6, 2025 at 1:19 AM
astrolamb.bsky.social
WE ARE NOT FREE until the Billionaire Classes get their filthy hands of our personal information. Remove Elon Musk and his cronies now (5/8)
A minimalist painting of two drummers and a flautist in front of the American flag. Titled SECURITY... COMPANION OF LIBERTY
February 6, 2025 at 1:19 AM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Is it a coincidence that once Elon got is his hands meddling in federal IT servers, two planes fell from the sky? jUsT aSkInG qUeStIoNs... (4/8)
A vintage photo of a half-opened suitcase with stickers for Paris, with cutout vintage photos of people in the suitcase. Turquoise background. Titled "Leaving on a Jet Plane?" Subtitled "Check with the office of security when planning foreign travel"
February 6, 2025 at 1:19 AM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Listen to Smokey y'all! Also, follow @altnps.bsky.social for their excellent work (3/8)
Smokey the Bear in a yellow hat captioned in yellow "Only You can Prevent... Security Violations"
February 6, 2025 at 1:19 AM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Freedom ain't Free y'all! We all have to fight to keep our information secure! (2/8)
A painting of a soldier looking to the left with a gun in his hand. The painting has the words "Freedom isn't free... Do your [underlined] part, Practice Good SECURITY!" At the bottom is the seal of Counterintelligence & Security Activity
February 6, 2025 at 1:19 AM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Dealt with a security incident on a website I help run today. Not fun, but what was delightful was finding an old NOAA website with vintage security reminders. Thought it was relevant to remind federal agents who swore by the constitution to protect our data...(1/8)

www.wrc.noaa.gov/wrso/posters...
A portrait of Uncle Sam captioned above with "Security" and below with "Stay on the Job"
February 6, 2025 at 1:19 AM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Raced at my first swim meet for 12 years with the Nashville Aquatics Club Masters & Tri team yesterday as I train for my first triathlon in a few months! My teammates loved that this astrophysicist showed up a constellations swimming cap 🤩🔭✨
A photo of a white t-shirt with “NAC Masters” in gold, with a white NAC Masters & Tri swimming cap, a blue swimming gap with constellations, and a pair of swimming goggles.
January 19, 2025 at 5:08 PM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Roedd gan adra un anrheg arall cyn i mi adael. Gymaint o sêr er bore niwlog ✨

Home had one more gift for me before I left for a new semester. So many stars despite a foggy morning 🌘

📷 Yr Wyddfa, Cymru
#astrophotography #yrwyddfa #cymru #eryri #gwyddoniaeth
A landscape photo of Yr Wyddfa (formally known in English as “Snowdon”), the tallest peak in Wales, UK, in the early morning. The mountain and its surrounding range is in silhouette, backlit by a crescent moon above the peak. There are stars in the surrounding sky and some mist lying close to the ground. The sky is a dark blue, with some pink around the mountains.
December 27, 2024 at 10:56 AM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Mor braf i fod yn ôl am y gwyliau, er y tywydd weithiau ❄️

📍Llanddeiniolen, Gwynedd, Cymru 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

#photography #sunset #winter #cymru
A sunset photo. A grassy field with some sheep is in the foreground, and a mountain center left. Blue sky with a sunset on the horizon piercing through some clouds
December 11, 2024 at 5:13 PM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Dwi adra bois! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

📍: Penllyn, Brynrefail, Gwynedd
A landscape of a lake, Llyn Padarn, in the foreground, with the shadow of the Eryri mountains in the background. The sky is blue and clouds cover the mountains. The sun shines through the clouds
December 10, 2024 at 12:01 PM
astrolamb.bsky.social
I believe that once we nail down our noise modelling, the amplitude will converge between the three PTAs. Not they diverge too much right now though - this paper showed good consistency between the three PTAs last year, and MPTA is consistent with these three too
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...
A comparison of the gravitational wave background (GWB) as measured by the EPTA+InPTA, NANOGrav, and PPTA pulsar timing arrays. On the left is a plot of the (log) root mean squared timing residual as measured by each PTA as a function of frequency. Blue contours as from EPTA+InPTA, orange is NANOGrav, and green is PPTA. A faint black line crosses each contour, showing that these lines fit to the data from each PTA. The lines are straight with a negative gradient. On the right is a contour plot of the amplitude of the faint black line on the left as a function of the gradient of the line, for each PTA (coloured as before), with a joint combined result overlapping them all in black. The contours overlap, and the black contour is narrower but overlaps them all.
December 3, 2024 at 3:08 PM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Dwi'n gwneud hyn i ddeall sut mae tyllau duon gorenfawr a galaethau wedi esblygu, a pham mae'r bydysawd yn edrych fel y mae o heddiw. Ar y funud, dwi'n gweithio ar deall yn well astudegau'r signal o dyllau duon yn ein arbrawf, a chyfrifo faint allwn ni dysgu amdanyn nhw.

[Llun: Lamb & Taylor 2024]
Figure from Lamb & Taylor 2024. The mean of three populations is given by three solid lines (which are overlaid on each other), coloured orange, blue, and green. Each population has an uncertainty, shown by a wider, coloured contour. The orange contour is the narrowest, and the green contour is the widest. Right panel: three straight lines measuring the variance (or the width of the contours on the left), with the green line greater than the blue greater than the orange.
November 30, 2024 at 9:22 PM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Dan ni'n mesur y fflachiadau gyda dysglau radio ar draws y byd. Yn 2023, nes i gyfrannu at gyhoeddiad o brofi ein bod yn gallu mesur tonnau disgyrchiant gyda NANOGrav, gyda'n cydweithwyr yn yr Arae Amseru Pylsêr Rhyngwladol (International Pulsar Timing Array, IPTA)

[Llun: tystiolaeth gan NANOGrav]
Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicts that a background of gravitational waves should imprint a distinctive pattern of correlated timing variations on pulsars, indicated by the black dashed line. By binning and averaging the correlation measurements of all our pulsar pairs, NANOGrav finds the points in blue with uncertainties shown by the error bars. We now have multiple lines of evidence for a gravitational wave background, producing a pattern of correlated timing offsets that is consistent with general relativity.
November 30, 2024 at 9:22 PM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Pan mae ton yn mynd heibio ni a phylseren, mae'n cymryd mwy o amser i'r golau radio o'r pylseren i gyrraedd y ddaear oherwydd mae mwy o bellter i deithio. Felly, ma na oediad rhwng yr amser dan ni'n disgwyl fflach o'r pylseren a phryd dan ni'n ei fesur.

[Llun: @natureintheory.bsky.social/NANOGrav]
Artist's rendering of an array of millisecond pulsars in our galaxy being used to search for a background of low-frequency gravitational waves permeating the Universe.
November 30, 2024 at 9:22 PM
astrolamb.bsky.social
I fesur y tonnau, dan ni'n mesur newidiadau yn pellterau rhyngddom ni a set o bylsêr. Seren wedi hen farw sy'n troelli'n sydyn yw pylseren, sy'n allyru golau radio o'i pegynau. O'r ddaear, mae'r pylsêr yn edrych fel eu bod yn fflachio - neu, 'pylsio.'

[Llun: @natureintheory.bsky.social/NANOGrav]
Artist's rendering of a pulsar - a rapidly rotating neutron star that emits a beam of radiation that passes the Earth once every rotation. This results in the appearance of a pulsating star, hence the term pulsar.
November 30, 2024 at 9:22 PM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Ok nai dechrau'r ffrwd #gwyddoniaeth!

Myfyriwr PhD ym Mhrifysgol Vanderbilt (Nashville, TN) ydw i, yn wreiddiol o Eryri, sy'n astudio tonnau disgyrchiant (gravitational waves) i fesur tyllau duon. Dwi'n gweithio ar arbrawf @nanograv.bsky.social a'r IPTA

[Llun: @natureintheory.bsky.social/NANOGrav]
Artist's rendering of black hole binaries emitting gravitational waves. As the waves overlap, they produce a background of gravitational waves that creates a distinctive correlation pattern in the timing of pulses coming from pairs of pulsars
November 30, 2024 at 9:22 PM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Hello to my many new followers! May I introduce you to my son, WiggleWorm

When I moved to the US during Covid for my PhD, I hadn’t a place to stay. Fortunately, an admin in my dept had an empty airbnb in her attic. Wormi was her “foster failure” (she rescues kittens) and we became best friends 🐱
A photo of WiggleWorm, a long haired orange cat with white fur on his mouth and chin. He rests with this left paw tucked in front of him
November 11, 2024 at 3:53 AM
astrolamb.bsky.social
Comet C/2023 flying over the Parthenon in Centennial Park, Nashville TN last night! (15 Oct 2024) ☄️🔭
In the top left, a faint comet with its tail pointing towards the upper left corner, against a dark blue sky. in the bottom right, the Nashville Parthenon - a Greek structure with tall columns - is illuminated by purple light, surrounded by a park. In the bottom center, a person is walking through the lights of the park.
October 16, 2024 at 3:53 PM
astrolamb.bsky.social
I'm excited to share my latest paper, submitted to ApJL! arxiv.org/html/2407.06... 🧪🔭

We derive analytical forms for the variance, skewness, and kurtosis of a GW background from a finite population of GW sources.

We hope this could improve astrophysical GWB modeling in the PTA, LISA and LIGO bands
Fig. 2 of Lamb & Taylor (2024). There are four panels representing the mean, variance, skewness, and kurtosis of realisations of a simulated gravitational wave background as a function of gravitational wave frequency. Each panel also has faded grey guidelines to represent the expected analytical relation for each statistic. The numerical and analytical results strongly agree.
July 10, 2024 at 1:55 PM