John Culliney

Key takeaways

John Culliney 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 Culliney to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of John Culliney from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

John L. Culliney is an American biologist, a retired professor of biology and marine biology at Hawaii Pacific University.

Background Culliney is a graduate of Yale and Duke universities and holds a doctorate in zoology. He has taught biology and marine science in Hawai‘i since 1978 and has authored four books on subjects ranging from the North American continental shelf to the horticulture of native Hawaiian plants. He lives on the island of Hawaii.

Works

Publications - Books 2006 ISLANDS IN A FAR SEA: The Fate of Nature in Hawai`i (Revised Edition). University of Hawai`i Press, Honolulu. 420 p. 1999 A NATIVE HAWAIIAN GARDEN: How to Grow and Care for Island Plants. University of Hawai`i Press, Honolulu. (with B.P. Koebele). 140 p. 1988 ISLANDS IN A FAR SEA: Nature and Man in Hawaii. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco. 410 p. 1981 LESA MORYA ( The Forests of the Sea) – Russian Edition. Hydrometeorological Press, Leningrad. 280 p. 1980 EXPLORING UNDERWATER:The Sierra Club Guide to Scuba and Snorkeling. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco. 340 p. (with E.S. Crockett). 1979 THE FORESTS OF THE SEA – Anchor Books (softcover) Edition. Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City, N.Y. 433 p. 1977 THE FORESTS OF THE SEA: Life and Death on the Continental Shelf. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco. 290 p.

Publications - Professional Articles – Marine Biology 1976 Larval development of the deep water wood-boring bivalve, Xylophaga atlantica Richards (Mollusca, Bivalvia, Pholadidae). Ophelia 15 (2): 149-161 (with R.D. Turner). 1975 Comparative larval development of the shipworms Bankia gouldi and Teredo navalis. Marine Biology 29: 245–251. 1975 Nitrogen fixation in marine shipworms. Science 187 (4176): 551–552.with - E.S. Carpenter 1975 New approaches and techniques for studying bivalve larvae. pp. 257–271 in Smith, W. and M.Chanley (Eds.) Culture of Marine Invertebrate Animals. Plenum, New York, N.Y. 338 p. (with P.J. Boyle and R.D. Turner). 1974 Larval development of the giant scallop, Placopecten magellanicus (Gmelin) Biol. Bull. 147: 321–332. 1973 Settling of larval shipworms, Teredo navalis and Bankia gouldi, stimulated by humic material (Gelbstoff). pp. 822–829 in Materials in the Sea: Proc. Third Intl. Congr. on Marine Corrosion and Fouling. Northwestern Univ. Press, Evanston. 1,031 p. 1973 The biologist's view of the Teredinidae and their control (with a documentary film on Teredo life history). pp. 83–87, Ibid. (with Ruth D. Turner). 1972 Cinemicrographic studies of crawling behavior in larval and juvenile bivalves. Bull. Amer. Malacological. Union (1971), p. 29. 1971 Laboratory rearing of the larvae of the mahogany date mussel, Lithophaga bisulcata. Bull. Mar. Sci. 21 (2): 591–602. 1971 Thoughts on National Parks (guest editorial). Bioscience 21 (16): 843. 1971 Some anatomical and life history studies of wood-boring bivalve systematics. Bull. Amer. Malacological Union (1970), pp. 65–66. (with R.D. Turner). 1970 Measurements of reactive phosphorus associated with pelagic Sargassum in the Northwest Sargasso Sea. Limnol. Oceanogr. 15 (2): 304–306.

Publications - Reviews and Essays 2007 Primeval Kailua (5 essays in a book-length work as yet untitled, commissioned by the Kailua Historical Society, Kailua, Hawai`i). 2000 The fractal self and the organization of nature: The Daoist sage and chaos theory. Asian Culture Quarterly 28 (3): 59–70. (with David Jones) 1998 Confucian order at the edge of chaos: The science of complexity and ancient wisdom. Zygon: The Journal of Science and Religion 33 (4): 395–404. (with David Jones) 1998 "Seal" and "Whale": Articles for Encarta Reference Suite 99. Microsoft Corp. Bellevue, Washington. 1994 Book Reviews: (Stafford-Dietsch, J. Reef: A Safari Through the Coral World. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco. 1993. Also, Taylor, L. Sharks of Hawaii: Their Biology and Cultural Significance. Univ. of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. 1993) In: MANOA 6 (2): 271–274. 1992 Essay: "Hawaii at the Edge," pp. 168–185, In: F. Stewart, (ed.) A World Between Waves. Island Press, Washington, D.C. 1989 Descriptive essays on Hawaii National Parks: "Haleakala" and "Hawaii Volcanoes," pp. 218–233, In: National Geographic's Guide to the National Parks of the United States. National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John Culliney

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John Culliney 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 Culliney 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 Culliney 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 Culliney

In research: John Culliney 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 Culliney 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 Culliney is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American scientists, Duke University alumni, Living people, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John Culliney 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.

How to study John Culliney in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is John Culliney in simple terms?

John L. Culliney is an American biologist, a retired professor of biology and marine biology at Hawaii Pacific University.

Why does John Culliney 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 Culliney?

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 Culliney.