engineering

Old Provost

Old Provost 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 Old Provost rather than just read about it. In short: The Old Provost is a military prison finished in early 1838 as part of efforts to fortify the small city of Grahamstown, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. These efforts were part of the Governor of the Cape Colony's, Sir Benjamin d'Urban, 1835 defensive plan which includes the building of Fort Selwyn and the fortification of the Drostdy.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

The Old Provost is a military prison finished in early 1838 as part of efforts to fortify the small city of Grahamstown, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. These efforts were part of the Governor of the Cape Colony's, Sir Benjamin d'Urban, 1835 defensive plan which includes the building of Fort Selwyn and the fortification of the Drostdy. It is situated on Lucas Avenue between the Old Military Hospital, which is now part of the Rhodes University Botany Department, and the Grahamstown Botanical Gardens. Built to a design adapted from Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon prison. This design is unique in the British Cape Colony. Designed to allow for constant surveillance of the prisoners. The prison is shaped as a quarter circle with eight cells, roughly 2m by 3m each, running along the curved arc of wall with the exercise area's for each cell radiating out from the double story watch tower, which has portals looking into each exercise area. In 1937 the Old Provost was declared a heritage site. In 1982 and 1983 the Old Provost underwent restoration and was put under control of the Albany Museum. During the restoration the remains of some of the exercise area walls were discovered and restored.

Present The Old Provost has been renovated and operates as The Provost Café as of the 8th of April 2013. As of March 2020, The Provost Café is closed, and LA Café is now housed in the building

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Old Provost

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Old Provost 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 Old Provost 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 Old Provost 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 Old Provost

In research: Old Provost 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 Old Provost 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: Old Provost is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 19th-century architecture in South Africa, Buildings and structures completed in 1838, Buildings and structures in Makhanda, Eastern Cape, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Old Provost 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 Old Provost in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Old Provost in simple terms?

Why does Old Provost 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 Old Provost?

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 Old Provost.