astronomy

R. Stanley Williams

R. Stanley Williams 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. Stanley Williams rather than just read about it. In short: Richard Stanley Williams (born 1951) is an American research scientist in the field of nanotechnology and a Senior Fellow and the founding director of the Quantum Science Research Laboratory at Hewlett-Packard. He has over 57 patents, with 40 more patents pending.

Key takeaways

R. Stanley Williams 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. Stanley Williams to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of R. Stanley Williams from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Richard Stanley Williams (born 1951) is an American research scientist in the field of nanotechnology and a Senior Fellow and the founding director of the Quantum Science Research Laboratory at Hewlett-Packard. He has over 57 patents, with 40 more patents pending. At HP, he led a group that developed a working solid state version of Leon Chua's memristor. Williams earned a bachelor's degree in chemical physics in 1974 from Rice University and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1978. After graduating, he worked at Bell Labs before joining the faculty at UCLA, where he served as a professor from 1980 to 1995. He then joined HP Labs as director of its Information and Quantum Systems Lab.

Awards and honors Foresight Institute Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology (2000) Herman Bloch Medal for Industrial Research (2004) Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics (2000) Glenn T. Seaborg Medal, UCLA (2007)

References

External links His Nov. 28, 2008, article on Memristors in IEEE Spectrum

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with R. Stanley Williams

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what R. Stanley Williams 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. Stanley Williams 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. Stanley Williams 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. Stanley Williams

In research: R. Stanley Williams 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. Stanley Williams 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. Stanley Williams is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1951 births, 21st-century American physicists, American engineer stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for R. Stanley Williams 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 R. Stanley Williams in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is R. Stanley Williams in simple terms?

Why does R. Stanley Williams 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. Stanley Williams?

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. Stanley Williams.