astronomy

Patrick Lincoln

Patrick Lincoln 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 Patrick Lincoln rather than just read about it. In short: Patrick Denis Lincoln (born 1964) is an American computer scientist leading the Computer Science Laboratory (CSL) at SRI International. Educated at MIT and then Stanford, he joined SRI in 1989 and became director of the CSL around 1998.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Patrick Denis Lincoln (born 1964) is an American computer scientist leading the Computer Science Laboratory (CSL) at SRI International. Educated at MIT and then Stanford, he joined SRI in 1989 and became director of the CSL around 1998. He previously held positions with ETA Systems, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and MCC.

Education and early career Lincoln received a bachelor of science in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986, with the thesis "DisCoRd distributed combinator reduction, automatic parallelizing compiler" under thesis advisor Rishiyur Nikhil. While pursuing that degree, he held a position in ETA Systems' Software Division from 1982 to 1983; one at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Division C-10 from 1984 to 1985. After graduation, he held a position with MCC from 1986 to 1988 in their Software Technology and Advanced Computer Architecture departments. Lincoln then attended Stanford University, from 1988 to 1992, earning a Ph.D. in computer science under advisor John Mitchell. Lincoln's doctoral dissertation was "Computational aspects of linear logic".

Later career In 1989, Lincoln joined SRI International's Computer Science Laboratory (CSL). He is the director of SRI's Computer Science Laboratory since 1998 and became Vice-President of Information and Computing Sciences in 2018. He is also the executive director of SRI's program for the Department of Homeland Security's Cyber Security Research and Development Center and co-director of the SRI Center for Computational Biology. He also leads numerous multidisciplinary research groups. In 2013, he was featured in the BBC Horizon episode "Defeating the Hackers" and NOVA episode "Rise of the Hackers" describing his work on secure computing and cortical cryptography. This is focusing on how to store a password in someone's mind that they cannot directly recall; for example, by teaching them to play a song and measuring their reaction times. Those methods are theoretically resistant to rubber-hose cryptanalysis, where a user is coerced to give up a password or other key; if you don't know a password, you can't tell it to someone.

Advisory boards and awards He has served on the Defense Science Board task force on Science and Technology and of the Defense Science Board task force on Defensive Information Operations. He is serving on several advisory boards, including startups such as Neurome, Relational.AI, Blackhorse. In 2005, Lincoln was named an SRI Fellow. In 2013, he and collaborators received the Best Paper Award at The 19th IEEE Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing (PRDC).

Selected publications Patrick Lincoln holds over 240 scientific publications. He is amongst the computer scientists whose publications' h-index is above 50

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Patrick Lincoln

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Patrick Lincoln 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 Patrick Lincoln 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 Patrick Lincoln 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 Patrick Lincoln

In research: Patrick Lincoln 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 Patrick Lincoln 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: Patrick Lincoln is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1964 births, American biotechnologists, American computer scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Patrick Lincoln 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 Patrick Lincoln in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Patrick Lincoln in simple terms?

Why does Patrick Lincoln 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 Patrick Lincoln?

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 Patrick Lincoln.