astronomy

Robin Boast

Robin Boast 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 Robin Boast rather than just read about it. In short: Robin Benville Boast (born 2 March 1956) is the Professor Emeritus at the University of Amsterdam, Department of Media Studies. Until the end of 2012 Boast was an Associate Professor and Curator for World Archaeology at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Robin Benville Boast (born 2 March 1956) is the Professor Emeritus at the University of Amsterdam, Department of Media Studies. Until the end of 2012 Boast was an Associate Professor and Curator for World Archaeology at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge. Until 2010, Prof. Boast was the Graduate Tutor at Hughes Hall College in Cambridge. In December 2021, Boast retired from the University of Amsterdam where he taught for nine years on Cultural Information Science, Neo-colonial information governance, and the history and sociology of digitally and collecting. He remains an Emeritus Professor at the University of Amsterdam and is a Cornwall Associate at the University of Exeter. He has been a visiting professor at the European University Institute in Florence, a principal investigator/scientific advisor for several EU projects, and was the director of the Virtual Teaching Collection Project. Boast has worked in museums in the US and Britain for over 30 years, specializing in museum access, classification and documentation, especially around diverse knowledge communities. Through a program of historical, theoretical and practical inquiry, his research explores forms of informed, collaborative and critical access to museum spaces and collections. Boast is currently working with many indigenous communities around the world that seek to enable and re-centre the many dimensions of local knowledge expertise within the academy – research informed by the critiques of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, Post-colonial studies, Indigenous Studies and collaborative developments in e-Science. He has worked for several years on an international research project which subjects the museum and the academy to the ethnographic gaze of indigenous partners to de-centre the ownership and control of research of indigenous patrimony. Boast has worked with source community museums and heritage organizations with Ramesh Srinivasan and James Enote, primarily at the A:shiwi A:wan Museum & Heritage Center in Zuni, New Mexico (USA). Most recently, Boast has been involved with repatriation and archiving projects with the Office of Indigenous Strategy and Engagement, Flinders University. His recent book projects include The Machine in the Ghost: Digitality and its Consequences, as well as an ongoing book project on Digital Information. Prof. Boast was, until 2024, the Chair of the EU's Europeana Research Advisory Board.

Publications Boast, Robin (2020) Future, What Future?. In schnittpunkt and Joachim Baur (eds.), Das Museum der Zukunft. 43 neue Beiträge zur Diskussion über die Zukunft des Museums (The Museum of the Future, 43 new Contributions to the Discussion about the Future of the Museum), Edition Museum. 48:79-84. Boast, Robin (2017) The Machine in the Ghost: Digitality and its Consequences. London: Reaktion Books. Boast, Robin (2011) Neocolonial Collaboration: Museum as Contact Zone Revisited. Museum Anthropology 34(1):56-70. Boast, R. (2002) Computing Futures: A Vision of the Past. In B. Cunliffe, W. Davies and C. Renfrew (eds.), Archaeology: the widening debate. London, British Academy, pp. 567–592. Boast, R. (2002) Pots as Categories: British Beakers. In A. Woodward and J.D. Hill (eds.) Prehistoric Britain: The Ceramic Basis, Oxbow Books, Oxford, pp. 96–105. Boast, R, S. Guha and A. Herle (2001) Collecting Sights: the Photographic Collections of the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, 1850-1970. Cambridge: Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge University Press. Boast, R. (2000) Speculum, Exemplar, Imago. In A. Lowe & S. Schaffer (eds.), N01SE: Universal Language, Pattern Recognition, Data Synaesthetics. Cambridge, Kettle's Yard. Boast, R. (1997) A small company of actors: a critique of style. Journal of Material Culture, 2(2):173-198. Boast, R. (1997) Virtual Collections. In G. Denford (ed.), Representing Archaeology in Museums, Museum Archaeologist 22:94-100. Boast, R. (1995) The Virtual Teaching Collection: Multimedia access to museum collections. Proceedings of "Information: the Hidden Resource, The Seventh International Conference of the Museum Documentation Association, Edinburgh. Cambridge, Museum Documentation Association, pp. 323–334. Boast, R. (1995) Fine Pots, Pure Pots, Beaker Pots. In I. Kinnes and G. Varndell (eds). 'Unbaked Urns of Rudely Shape' Essays on British and Irish Pottery for Ian Longworth, Oxford, Oxbow Monograph 55, pp. 69–80.

Joint publications Boast, Robin and Jim Enote (2013) Virtual Repatriation: It's Virtual, but it's not Repatriation. In Peter Biehl and Christopher Prescott (eds.), Heritage in Context of Globalization: Europe and the Americas. New York: SpringerBriefs in Archaeology. 8:103-113. Srinivasan, Ramesh, Robin Boast, J. Furner and Katherine Becvar (2009) Digital museums and diverse cultural knowledges: Moving past the traditional catalog. The Information Society. 25(3):. Srinivasan, Ramesh, Robin Boast, Katherine Becvar and Jim Enote (2009) Diverse Knowledges and Contact Zones within the Digital Museum. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 34(3): . Srinivasan, Ramesh, Jim Enote, Katherine M. Becvar, and Robin Boast (2009) Critical and Reflective Uses of New Media Technologies in Tribal Museums. Museum Management and Curatorship, 24(2): 169-189. Srinivasan, R., R. Boast, K. M. Becvar and J. Furner (2009) Blobgects: Digital Museum Catalogs and Diverse User Communities. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), 60(4): 666-678.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Robin Boast

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Robin Boast 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 Robin Boast 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 Robin Boast 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 Robin Boast

In research: Robin Boast 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 Robin Boast 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: Robin Boast is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1956 births, Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam, Academics of the University of Cambridge, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Robin Boast 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 Robin Boast in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Robin Boast in simple terms?

Why does Robin Boast 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 Robin Boast?

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 Robin Boast.