astronomy

Jack van Wijk

Jack van Wijk is a astronomy 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 Jack van Wijk rather than just read about it. In short: Jarke J. (Jack) van Wijk (born 1959) is a Dutch computer scientist, a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Eindhoven University of Technology, and an expert in information visualization.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Jarke J. (Jack) van Wijk (born 1959) is a Dutch computer scientist, a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Eindhoven University of Technology, and an expert in information visualization.

Biography Van Wijk received his M.S. from the Delft University of Technology in 1982. His master's thesis, on simulation of traffic collisions, led him to become interested in computer visualization, and he remained at Delft for his doctoral studies, completing a Ph.D. in 1986 under the supervision of Dennis J. McConalogue. He worked at the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands from 1988 until 1998, when he joined the Eindhoven faculty; he was promoted to a full professorship in 2001. As well as being a faculty member at TU Eindhoven, van Wijk is the vice president for scientific affairs at MagnaView, a Dutch information visualization company.

Research

In information visualization, Van Wijk is known for his research in texture synthesis, treemaps, and flow visualization. His work on map projection won the 2009 Henry Johns Award of the British Cartographic Society for best cartographic journal article. He has twice been program co-chair for IEEE Visualization, and once for IEEE InfoVis. In 2007, he received an IEEE Technical Achievement Award for his visualization research. In graph drawing, van Wijk has worked on the visualization of small-world networks and on the depiction of abstract trees as biological trees. He has also conducted user studies that showed that the standard depiction of directed edges in graph drawings using arrowheads is less effective at conveying the directionality of the edges to readers than other conventions such as tapering. He was one of two invited speakers at the 19th International Symposium on Graph Drawing in 2011, and the capstone speaker at the IEEE Visualization 2013.

References

External links Home page at TU Eindhoven

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jack van Wijk

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jack van Wijk claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, 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 Jack van Wijk 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 Jack van Wijk 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 Jack van Wijk

In research: Jack van Wijk appears in astronomy 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 Jack van Wijk 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: Jack van Wijk is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1959 births, Academic staff of the Eindhoven University of Technology, Data and information visualization experts, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jack van Wijk 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.

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How to study Jack van Wijk in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Jack van Wijk 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 Jack van Wijk out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Jack van Wijk in simple terms?

Why does Jack van Wijk matter?

Because it connects several astronomy 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 Jack van Wijk?

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 Jack van Wijk.