astronomy

James L. Flanagan

James L. Flanagan 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 James L. Flanagan rather than just read about it. In short: James Loton Flanagan (August 26, 1925 – August 25, 2015) was an American electrical engineer. He was Rutgers University's vice president for research until 2004.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

James Loton Flanagan (August 26, 1925 – August 25, 2015) was an American electrical engineer. He was Rutgers University's vice president for research until 2004. He was also director of Rutgers' Center for Advanced Information Processing and the Board of Governors Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is known for co-developing adaptive differential pulse-code modulation (ADPCM) with P. Cummiskey and Nikil Jayant at Bell Labs.

Biography Flanagan was born in Greenwood, Mississippi. He received a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering in 1948 at Mississippi State University. Afterwards, he started as a graduate student in the Acoustics Laboratory at MIT where he got his master's degree in 1950 and, after a two-year break teaching at Mississippi State, received his Ph.D. in 1955. He was chosen as the 2005 recipient of the Research and Development Council of New Jersey's Science/Technology Medal. He worked at Bell Laboratories for 33 years before he joined Rutgers. He has worked in voice communications, computer techniques, and electroacoustic systems. At Bell Laboratories he was the department head of the Acoustics Research Department for many years, and managed and supported work such as James E. West's invention of the electret microphone, Bishnu S. Atal's work on speech coding, David Berkley and Gary Elko's work on acoustics, Jont Allen and Joe Hall's work on psychoacoustics, James D. Johnston's work on perceptual audio coding mp3, work on speech synthesis, and Lawrence Rabiner and Aaron Rosenberg (and others) work on speech recognition. Flanagan holds the patent on the modern artificial larynx design. During his tenure, first as department head, and then Laboratory Director, many advancements in signal processing, psychoacoustics, array microphone processing, digital loudspeakers, and other pioneering achievements were reduced to practice. Flanagan has been a resident of Warren Township, New Jersey. He died on August 25, 2015.

Awards and honors National Medal of Science; L.M. Ericsson International Prize in Telecommunications; Doctor Honoris Causa by the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, October 1992. The IEEE James L. Flanagan Speech and Audio Processing award was established in 2002. IEEE Medal of Honor in 2005; Edison Medal in 1986 of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE); Medal of the European Speech Communication Association; Gold Medal of the Acoustical Society of America; Marconi International Fellowship. He is the author of more than 200 papers and two books, and holds 50 patents. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with James L. Flanagan

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what James L. Flanagan 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 James L. Flanagan 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 James L. Flanagan 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 James L. Flanagan

In research: James L. Flanagan 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 James L. Flanagan 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: James L. Flanagan is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1925 births, 2015 deaths, ASA Gold Medal recipients, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for James L. Flanagan 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 James L. Flanagan in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is James L. Flanagan in simple terms?

James Loton Flanagan (August 26, 1925 – August 25, 2015) was an American electrical engineer. He was Rutgers University's vice president for research until 2004.

Why does James L. Flanagan 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 James L. Flanagan?

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 James L. Flanagan.