astronomy

John C. Gittins

John C. Gittins 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 John C. Gittins rather than just read about it. In short: John Charles Gittins (born 1938) is a researcher in applied probability and operations research, who is a professor and Emeritus Fellow at Keble College, University of Oxford. He is renowned as the developer of the "Gittins index", which is used for sequential decision-making, especially in research and development in the pharmaceutical industry.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

John Charles Gittins (born 1938) is a researcher in applied probability and operations research, who is a professor and Emeritus Fellow at Keble College, University of Oxford. He is renowned as the developer of the "Gittins index", which is used for sequential decision-making, especially in research and development in the pharmaceutical industry. He has research interests in applied probability, decision analysis and optimal decisions, including optimal stopping and stochastic optimization. Gittins was an Assistant Director of Research at the Department of Engineering, Cambridge University from 1967 to 1974. Then he was a lecturer at the University of Oxford from 1975 to 2005 and head of the Department of Statistics there for 6 years. In 1992, the University of Oxford awarded him the honorary degree Doctor of Science (DSc). In 1996, he became a Professor of Statistics at the University of Oxford. He has been awarded the Rollo Davidson Prize (1982) for early-career probabilists, and the Guy Medal in Silver (1984).

Selected publications (1989) Multi-Armed Bandit Allocation Indices, Wiley. ISBN 0-471-92059-2 (1985) (with Bergman, S.W.) Statistical Methods for Pharmaceutical Research Planning, CRC Press. ISBN 0-8247-7146-X (2000) (with H. Pezeshk) "How Large Should a Clinical Trial Be?", The Statistician, 49 (2), 177–187 ) (2001) (with G. Harper) "Bounds on the Performance of a Greedy Algorithm for Probabilities". Mathematics of Operations Research, 26, 313–323 (2003) "Stochastic Models for the Planning of Pharmaceutical Research", Journal of Statistical Theory and Applications, 2 (2), 198–214. (2011) (with K. D. Glazebrook and R. R. Weber) Multi-Armed Bandit Allocation Indices, second edition, Wiley, ISBN 0-470-67002-9

References

External links Home page for John Gittins John C. Gittins at the Mathematics Genealogy Project

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John C. Gittins

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John C. Gittins 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 John C. Gittins 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 John C. Gittins 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 John C. Gittins

In research: John C. Gittins 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 John C. Gittins 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: John C. Gittins is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1938 births, 20th-century British statisticians, Academics of the University of Cambridge, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John C. Gittins 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.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “John C. Gittins” →

Affiliate

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

How to study John C. Gittins in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is John C. Gittins in simple terms?

Why does John C. Gittins 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 John C. Gittins?

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 John C. Gittins.