astronomy

Kenneth Creer

Kenneth Creer 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 Kenneth Creer rather than just read about it. In short: Kenneth Midworth Creer (1925 – 19 August 2020) was a British and Manx geophysicist who was the head of the geophysics department at the University of Edinburgh. He was the president of the European Geophysical Society from 1992 to 1994 and won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1996 among other accolades.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Kenneth Midworth Creer (1925 – 19 August 2020) was a British and Manx geophysicist who was the head of the geophysics department at the University of Edinburgh. He was the president of the European Geophysical Society from 1992 to 1994 and won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1996 among other accolades. Creer was an early pioneer of the theory of paleomagnetism, and was instrumental in producing the first paleomagnetic surveys and the first polar wandering curve.

Biography

Early life and military service Kenneth Midworth Creer was born in Douglas, Isle of Man in 1925. He went to Douglas High School. In 1944, immediately after leaving high school, Creer entered military service, becoming a 2nd lieutenant in the King's Regiment in June 1945. He went on to serve in the Royal West African Frontier Force (1945–46) as well as the High Commission Territories Corps in Egypt (1946–47).

Scientific career From 1948 to 1951 Creer studied at Queens' College, Cambridge. He then completed an MSc (1953) and PhD (1955) at the University of Cambridge. In 1954 Creer took up employment with the Geological Survey. In 1956 Creer was given a lectureship at Newcastle University, and in 1963 he was promoted to Reader of Geophysics. In 1966 Creer was promoted to a professorship. During his time at Newcastle, Creer was an advisor for the young lecturer in geophysics, Subir Kumar Banerjee. From 1971 to 1972 Creer was a visiting professor at Columbia University. In 1973, Creer was appointed head of the geophysics department at the University of Edinburgh, and held the role until his retirement in 1993. In his early career, Creer worked mainly on demagnetisation in a laboratory setting. At Newcastle, he showed that for iron oxide minerals, the direction of the secular variation of the Earth's magnetic field could be deduced from the residual magnetisation. Creer was a supporter of the expanding Earth theory and of applying cosmology to geological problems. He published a paper in 1965 entitled "Tracking the Earth’s Continents", in which he suggested that the Earth could be expanding at the same rate as the Hubble constant, and that the gravitational constant could be weakening on a universal scale. During his scientific career, Creer was given credit for some of the earliest paleomagnetic surveys, conducting surveys of the Palaeozoic in Great Britain and the Phanerozoic in South America. He also produced the first polar wandering curve (for Great Britain) along with Edward A. Irving and Keith Runcorn, and was a pioneer of continental reconstructions from plate tectonics using solely paleomagnetism. In later life, Creer worked on the paleomagnetism of sedimentary basins. From 1994 to 1995, he was a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin. Creer died on 19 August 2020.

Leadership roles Creer was the vice president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1986 to 1987. He was president of the European Geophysical Society from 1992 to 1994. Creer was instrumental in the merging of several journals to form Geophysical Journal International, and was the last editor of the Geophysics Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. He founded the UK Geophysical Assembly in 1977, a now inactive conference aimed at early career scientists.

Awards Creer received fellowships of the Academia Europaea, the American Geophysical Union and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He received a Prix mondial Nessim Habif for Science from the University of Geneva in 1987, the John Adam Fleming Medal from the American Geophysical Union in 1990, and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1996. He was also awarded the freedom of the city of Grenoble, France, in 1994.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kenneth Creer

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kenneth Creer 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 Kenneth Creer 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 Kenneth Creer 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 Kenneth Creer

In research: Kenneth Creer 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 Kenneth Creer 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: Kenneth Creer is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1925 births, 2020 deaths, Academics of Newcastle University, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kenneth Creer 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 Kenneth Creer in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Kenneth Creer in simple terms?

Why does Kenneth Creer 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 Kenneth Creer?

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 Kenneth Creer.