science

Lunatic

Lunatic is a science 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 Lunatic rather than just read about it. In short: Lunatic is a term referring to a person who is seen as mentally ill, dangerous, foolish, or crazy—conditions once attributed to "lunacy". The word derives from lunaticus meaning "of the moon" or "moonstruck".

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Lunatic is a term referring to a person who is seen as mentally ill, dangerous, foolish, or crazy—conditions once attributed to "lunacy". The word derives from lunaticus meaning "of the moon" or "moonstruck".

History

The term "lunatic" derives from the Latin word lunaticus, which originally referred mainly to epilepsy and madness, as diseases thought to be caused by the moon. The King James Version of the Bible records "lunatick" in the Gospel of Matthew, which has been interpreted as a reference to epilepsy. By the fourth and fifth centuries, astrologers were commonly using the term to refer to neurological and psychiatric diseases. Pliny the Elder argued that the full moon induced individuals to lunacy and epilepsy by effects on the brain analogous to the nocturnal dew. Until at least 1700, it was also a common belief that the moon influenced fevers, rheumatism, episodes of epilepsy and other diseases.

Use of the term "lunatic" in legislation In the jurisdiction of England and Wales, the Madhouses Act 1774 originated what later became Metropolitan Commissioners in Lunacy, under the Madhouses Act 1828. The Lunacy Acts 1890–1922 referred to "lunatics", but the Mental Treatment Act 1930 changed the legal term to "person of unsound mind", an expression which was replaced under the Mental Health Act 1959 by "mental illness". "Person of unsound mind" was the term used in 1950 in the English version of the European Convention on Human Rights as one of the types of person who could be deprived of liberty by a judicial process. The 1930 Act also replaced the term "asylum" with "mental hospital". Criminal lunatics became Broadmoor patients in 1948 under the National Health Service Act 1946. On December 5, 2012, the US House of Representatives passed legislation approved earlier by the US Senate removing the word "lunatic" from all federal laws in the United States. President Barack Obama signed the 21st Century Language Act of 2012 into law on December 28, 2012. "Of unsound mind" or non compos mentis are alternatives to "lunatic", the most conspicuous term used for insanity in the law in the late 19th century.

Lunar distance The term lunatic was sometimes used to describe those who sought to discover a reliable method of determining longitude (before John Harrison developed the marine chronometer method of determining longitude, the main theory was the Method of Lunar Distances, advanced by Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne). The artist William Hogarth portrayed a "longitude lunatic" in the eight scene of his 1733 work A Rake's Progress. Twenty years later, though, Hogarth described John Harrison's H-1 chronometer as "one of the most exquisite movements ever made." Later, members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham called themselves lunaticks. In an age with little street lighting, the society met on or near the night of the full moon.

See also Bedlam Lunar effect History of psychiatry History of psychiatric institutions

References

External links

Does the full moon have any effects on mood? (cites research studies: 2 negative, 1 positive) Crackdown on lunar-fuelled crime – BBC News, 5 June 2007

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lunatic

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

In research: Lunatic appears in science 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 Lunatic 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: Lunatic is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Full moon, Insanity in law, Moon in culture, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lunatic 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 Lunatic in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Lunatic in simple terms?

Why does Lunatic matter?

Because it connects several science 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 Lunatic?

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 Lunatic.