mathematics

Keith Bullen (mathematician)

Keith Bullen (mathematician) is a mathematics 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 Keith Bullen (mathematician) rather than just read about it. In short: Keith Edward Bullen FAA FRS (29 June 1906 – 23 September 1976) was a New Zealand-born mathematician and geophysicist. He is noted for his seismological interpretation of the deep structure of the Earth's mantle and core.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Keith Edward Bullen FAA FRS (29 June 1906 – 23 September 1976) was a New Zealand-born mathematician and geophysicist. He is noted for his seismological interpretation of the deep structure of the Earth's mantle and core. He was Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Sydney in Australia from 1945 until 1971.

Career Bullen went to St John's College, Cambridge in 1931, and became a research student, with Harold Jeffreys as his supervisor. Jeffreys was working on the revision of the travel time of the seismic waves from earthquakes and Bullen worked with Jeffreys on this project throughout his years in Cambridge. Jeffreys remarks of this period that 'Bullen's energy was phenomenal'. Bullen wrote prolifically. There are 290 papers in his list of publications. The topics are diverse; as well as the many research papers, there are scientific biographies, articles in encyclopaedias and dictionaries of science, and articles on education, especially mathematical education. His first book, Introduction to the Theory of Seismology, was published by the Cambridge University Press in 1947 and has been a standard text for seismology ever since. The third edition was published in 1975 and Turkish, Chinese, and Russian translations were published in 1960, 1965, and 1965 respectively. Two other books closely related to his teaching at Sydney, Introduction to the Theory of Dynamics and Introduction to the Theory of Mechanics were published in 1948 and 1949. An eighth edition of the latter was published in 1971. His short monograph, Seismology, was published by Methuen in 1954. The International Institute of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering published his notes for a lecture course on theoretical seismology in 1972. His last book, The Earth's Density, was published in 1975; it covers a wider range of geophysics than its title would suggest because the problem of the Earth's density distribution is so intimately related to seismological information on the interior of the Earth.

Despite being deaf, Bullen played a very considerable role in international geophysics. He served as president of the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior, as vice-president of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, and as vice-president of the International Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research, and on a number of committees concerned with seismology and geophysics. In Australian geophysics too he played a significant role, serving for five years as chairman of the Australian National Committee for the International Geophysical Year and also for five years as chairman of the Australian National Committee for Antarctic Research. Bullen's energy was, as Jeffreys remarked, phenomenal. This was true not only of his vocation, science, but also of his avocations. He was indefatigable as a tourist in his earlier days and later as a coin collector. After long days at scientific meetings, or on committees, he would spend many hours seeking out coin shops or other coin collectors.

Honours Bullen was awarded many medals and honours by societies in Australia and abroad, being elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1949, a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences in 1961, and Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1968. He was a foundation fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (1954), a member of the Council of the Academy 1955–57, and Matthew Flinders Lecturer and Medallist in 1969. He was also Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected 1960), Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (elected 1933), Honorary Fellow of the Geological Society of America (1963) and the Geological Society of London (1967), and Fellow of the Royal Societies of New Zealand (1963) and of NSW (1974). Bullen received the Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal of the Australian National Research Council (1949) He received the Bicentennial medal of Columbia University, New York, (1955), the Research medal of the Royal Society of Victoria (1966) and the Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture awarded by Australian Academy of Science in 1969. He was awarded the William Bowie Medal of the American Geophysical Union in 1961, the Arthur L. Day Medal of the Geological Society of America in 1963, and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1974.

Personal life Bullen married Florence Mary Pressley (known as Mary) in Auckland in 1935 and they had two children, a son named John born in Auckland in 1936, and a daughter named Anne born in Melbourne in 1943. Bullen's sister, Jean Maud Bullen, was a geoscientist at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Keith Bullen (mathematician)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Keith Bullen (mathematician) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, 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 Keith Bullen (mathematician) 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 Keith Bullen (mathematician) 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 Keith Bullen (mathematician)

In research: Keith Bullen (mathematician) appears in mathematics 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 Keith Bullen (mathematician) 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: Keith Bullen (mathematician) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1906 births, 1976 deaths, 20th-century Australian mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Keith Bullen (mathematician) 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 Keith Bullen (mathematician) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Keith Bullen (mathematician) 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.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Keith Bullen (mathematician) in simple terms?

Why does Keith Bullen (mathematician) matter?

Because it connects several mathematics 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 Keith Bullen (mathematician)?

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 Keith Bullen (mathematician).