astronomy

Kerstin Jordaan

Kerstin Jordaan 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 Kerstin Jordaan rather than just read about it. In short: Kerstin Heidrun Jordaan is a South African mathematician whose research interests include special functions and orthogonal polynomials. She is a professor in the Department of Decision Sciences at the University of South Africa, the executive director of the South African Mathematics Foundation, and the former president of the South African Mathematical Society.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Kerstin Heidrun Jordaan is a South African mathematician whose research interests include special functions and orthogonal polynomials. She is a professor in the Department of Decision Sciences at the University of South Africa, the executive director of the South African Mathematics Foundation, and the former president of the South African Mathematical Society. She was born and raised in South Africa, Jordaan has lived there throughout her life, apart from periodic research visits to various European countries as a visiting researcher. She is married and has two adult sons.

Education and career Going into her university studies, Jordaan considered medicine and psychology before ending up in mathematics. After earning a bachelor's degree in mathematics and geography at the University of Pretoria, Jordaan earned a second bachelor's degree in mathematics education at the University of the Witwatersrand, and became a secondary school mathematics teacher in Pretoria. She earned a master's degree from the University of Pretoria, before taking a break from academia to raise a family. After doing so, she returned to graduate school for a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand. Her 2001 dissertation, Zeros of general hypergeometric polynomials, was supervised by Kathy Driver. She was a member of the academic staff at the University of Pretoria until moving to the University of South Africa as a full professor in 2017. She served as president of the South African Mathematical Society from 2016 to 2019.

Recognition Jordaan is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. Jordaan is a National Research Foundation (NRF) B-rated researcher, recognised internationally for her contributions to mathematics. She has also received a Royal Society Newton Advanced Fellowship for her research on orthogonal polynomials and special functions.

References

External links Kerstin Jordaan publications indexed by Google Scholar

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kerstin Jordaan

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kerstin Jordaan 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 Kerstin Jordaan 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 Kerstin Jordaan 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 Kerstin Jordaan

In research: Kerstin Jordaan 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 Kerstin Jordaan 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: Kerstin Jordaan is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Academic staff of the University of Pretoria, Academic staff of the University of South Africa, Living people, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kerstin Jordaan 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 Kerstin Jordaan in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Kerstin Jordaan in simple terms?

Why does Kerstin Jordaan 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 Kerstin Jordaan?

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 Kerstin Jordaan.