engineering

Leslie Thiess

Leslie Thiess is a engineering 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 Leslie Thiess rather than just read about it. In short: Sir Leslie Charles Thiess CBE (8 April 1909 – 25 November 1992) was a construction and mining industry entrepreneur, based in Queensland, Australia. He was one of the founders of Thiess Bros, which later became Thiess Pty Ltd.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Sir Leslie Charles Thiess CBE (8 April 1909 – 25 November 1992) was a construction and mining industry entrepreneur, based in Queensland, Australia. He was one of the founders of Thiess Bros, which later became Thiess Pty Ltd. With a humble background, and one of eleven children, Thiess founded a contracting firm in 1933, in partnership with Henry Horn. Under his leadership, the company became a major contractor in Queensland and, when Horn retired in 1939, the firm became Thiess Bros. It prospered from a succession of military engineering contracts during World War II, and Thiess and his four brothers formed Thiess Holdings in 1950. The firm was floated on the Sydney and Brisbane stock exchanges in 1958. In 1968, Thiess was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and, in 1971, he was knighted. After a hostile takeover by CSR in 1979, Thiess lost control of his company but, with assistance from two major backers, he bought back the construction division, continuing to develop coal mines and work on major Queensland government contracts, as well as being granted the licence for a casino in Townsville. In the 1980s, it was alleged on television that he had delivered a hangar to the property of Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, and had done private civil engineering works for Bjelke-Petersen that were written off as "Queensland Government Projects". Thiess sued Channel 9 for defamation, and won a minimal $55,050 in damages, but the jury found many of the allegations to be true. Thiess's appeal to the High Court was dismissed, with costs. It was clear that he had increasingly made use of his closeness to politicians and officials to obtain contracts, sometimes using inducements. In 1999, he received posthumously the Distinguished Constructor Award from the Queensland University of Technology.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Leslie Thiess

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Leslie Thiess claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, 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 Leslie Thiess 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 Leslie Thiess 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 Leslie Thiess

In research: Leslie Thiess appears in engineering 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 Leslie Thiess 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: Leslie Thiess is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1909 births, 1992 deaths, 20th-century Australian engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Leslie Thiess 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 Leslie Thiess in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Leslie Thiess in simple terms?

Why does Leslie Thiess matter?

Because it connects several engineering 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 Leslie Thiess?

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 Leslie Thiess.