astronomy

R. Duncan Luce

R. Duncan Luce 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 R. Duncan Luce rather than just read about it. In short: Robert Duncan Luce (May 16, 1925 – August 11, 2012) was an American mathematician and social scientist, and one of the most preeminent figures in the field of mathematical psychology. At the end of his life, he held the position of Distinguished Research Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California, Irvine.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Robert Duncan Luce (May 16, 1925 – August 11, 2012) was an American mathematician and social scientist, and one of the most preeminent figures in the field of mathematical psychology. At the end of his life, he held the position of Distinguished Research Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California, Irvine.

Education and career Luce received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1945, and PhD in Mathematics from the same university in 1950 under Irvin S. Cohen with thesis On Semigroups. He began his professorial career at Columbia University in 1954, where he was an assistant professor in mathematical statistics and sociology. Following a lecturership at Harvard University from 1957 to 1959, he became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania in 1959, and was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Professorship of Psychology in 1968. After visiting the Institute for Advanced Study beginning in 1969, he joined the UC Irvine faculty in 1972, but returned to Harvard in 1976 as Alfred North Whitehead Professor of Psychology and then later as Victor S. Thomas Professor of Psychology. In 1988 Luce rejoined the UC Irvine faculty as Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Sciences and (from 1988 to 1998) director of UCI's Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences.

Contributions Contributions for which Luce is known include formulating Luce's choice axiom formalizing the principle that additional options should not affect the probability of selecting one item over another, defining semiorders, introducing graph-theoretic methods into the social sciences, and coining the term "clique" for a complete subgraph in graph theory.

Recognition In 1966, Luce was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Luce was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1972 for his work on fundamental measurement, utility theory, global psychophysics, and mathematical behavioral sciences. He received the 2003 National Medal of Science in behavioral and social science for his contributions to the field of mathematical psychology. In 2004, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Books by Luce Luce, R. Duncan; Raiffa, Howard (1957). Games and decisions: introduction and critical survey. New York: Wiley. MR 0087572. Paperback reprint, Dover, New York Luce, R. Duncan (1959). Individual choice behavior: a theoretical analysis. New York: Wiley. Luce, R. Duncan (1960). "Response latencies and probabilities". In Arrow, Kenneth J.; Karlin, Samuel; Suppes, Patrick (eds.). Mathematical models in the social sciences, 1959: Proceedings of the first Stanford symposium. Stanford mathematical studies in the social sciences. Vol. IV. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. pp. 298–311. ISBN 9780804700214. {{cite conference}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) Luce, R. Duncan (1986). Response times: their role in inferring elementary mental organization. New York: Oxford.

References

External links

Archival collections Guide to the R. Duncan Luce Papers. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

Other Luce's web page with publications. Archived 2020-07-02 at the Wayback Machine Science journal's summary of his work. Biography of R. Duncan Luce from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with R. Duncan Luce

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what R. Duncan Luce 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 R. Duncan Luce 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 R. Duncan Luce 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 R. Duncan Luce

In research: R. Duncan Luce 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 R. Duncan Luce 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: R. Duncan Luce is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1925 births, 2012 deaths, APA Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology recipients, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for R. Duncan Luce 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.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “R. Duncan Luce” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study R. Duncan Luce in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is R. Duncan Luce in simple terms?

Why does R. Duncan Luce 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 R. Duncan Luce?

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 R. Duncan Luce.