science

Instant Stories

Instant Stories is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Instant Stories rather than just read about it. In short: Instant Stories is a photography book by German filmmaker and photographer Wim Wenders, published in 2017. The book is a collection of more than 400 polaroid photographs taken from 1968 to 2017, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s.

Key takeaways

Instant Stories belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Instant Stories to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Instant Stories from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Instant Stories is a photography book by German filmmaker and photographer Wim Wenders, published in 2017. The book is a collection of more than 400 polaroid photographs taken from 1968 to 2017, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s. The book and the related exhibition where received with high critical acclaim.

Content The book documents a large quantity of polaroid's taken by Wenders under the most diverse circumstances, presenting places, with street and landscape photographs, and events during his film career, specially in the 1970s, including his first travels to the United States, portraits of friends and actors, a travel to Japan to meet Yasujiro Ozu, and film theaters in Germany. Wenders himself wrote the explanatory texts, short stories and haikus of the book. Wenders explained that his purpose back then, more than creating art, was to document life: "It was just part of my life. I would photograph things to do with movies I was making, or when I travelled. It was useful and fun - which I think is what Polaroids were for most people."

Exhibition The book was accompanied by the exhibition "Instant Stories/Wim Wenders' Polaroids", which took place at The Photographers' Gallery, in London, from 20 October 2017 to 11 February 2018.

Reception The British Journal of Photography praised the book and described it as a "love letter to the Polaroid". Charlotte Irwin, at Financial Times, also praised the book, considering that "Whether it's an intimate glimpse of actor Dennis Hopper or an empty Western landscape, the pictures act as an authentic, unedited documentation of Wenders's life and work, and show the beauty of photography before the filtered age."

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Instant Stories

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Instant Stories claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Instant Stories before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Instant Stories ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Instant Stories

In research: Instant Stories appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Instant Stories in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Instant Stories is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2017 non-fiction books, Books by Wim Wenders, German non-fiction books, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Instant Stories outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Instant Stories in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Instant Stories means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Instant Stories out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Instant Stories in simple terms?

Why does Instant Stories matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Instant Stories?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Instant Stories.