astronomy

Roger Tomlinson

Roger Tomlinson 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 Roger Tomlinson rather than just read about it. In short: Roger Frank Tomlinson (17 November 1933 – 7 February 2014) was an English-Canadian geographer and the primary originator of modern geographic information systems (GIS), and has been acknowledged as the "father of GIS." Biography Roger Tomlinson was a native of Newmarket, England, and prior to attending university, he served in the Royal Air Force from 1951–1954 as a pilot and flying officer. After his military servi…

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Roger Frank Tomlinson (17 November 1933 – 7 February 2014) was an English-Canadian geographer and the primary originator of modern geographic information systems (GIS), and has been acknowledged as the "father of GIS."

Biography

Roger Tomlinson was a native of Newmarket, England, and prior to attending university, he served in the Royal Air Force from 1951–1954 as a pilot and flying officer. After his military service, Tomlinson attended the University of Nottingham and Acadia University for two separate undergraduate degrees in geography and geology, respectively. He received a master's degree in geography from McGill University where he specialised in the glacial geomorphology of Labrador. His Doctoral thesis at University College London was titled: The application of electronic computing methods and techniques to the storage, compilation, and assessment of mapped data. Tomlinson's early career included serving as an assistant professor at Acadia, working as the manager of the computer mapping division at Spartan Air Services in Ottawa, Ontario (following his studies at McGill), and work with the Government of Canada first as a consultant and later as a director of regional planning systems with the Department of Forestry and Rural Development. It was during his tenure in the 1960s with Ottawa-based aerial survey company Spartan Air Services that Tomlinson conceptualized combining land use mapping with emerging computer technology. This pioneering work led him to initiate, plan and direct the development of the Canada Geographic Information System, the first computerised GIS in the world. From the 1970s until his death, Tomlinson worked in geographic consulting and research for a variety of private sector, government, and non-profit organisations, largely through his Ottawa-based company, Tomlinson Associates Ltd., which has branches of consulting geographers in Canada, the United States, and Australia. He was Chairman of the International Geographical Union GIS Commission for 12 years. He pioneered the concepts of worldwide geographical data availability as Chairman of the IGU Global Database Planning Project in 1988. He was also a president of the Canadian Association of Geographers.

Awards and honours He was recipient of Canadian Association of Geographers rare award for Service to the Profession. The Association of American Geographers in the United States awarded him the James R. Anderson Medal of Honor for Applied Geography in 1995 and he was the first recipient of the Robert T. Aangeenbrug Distinguished Career Award in 2005. Tomlinson was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and winner of their Murchison Award for the Development of Geographic Information Systems. In 1996 he was awarded the GIS World Lifetime Achievement Award for a lifetime of work with GIS, and he was the first recipient of the ESRI Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. In 2004, in recognition of his numerous achievements in the industry, the GIS Certification Institute awarded Tomlinson the GISP Certificate for Lifetime GIS Achievement and he was inducted into URISA's GIS Hall of Fame Archived 22 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine and awarded lifetime membership. In 2010 Tomlinson received the Alexander Graham Bell Medal of the National Geographic Society (together with Jack Dangermond). In 2011, he was presented with an Honorary Membership in the Association of Ontario Land Surveyors. Tomlinson also received the Geospatial Information & Technology Association Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2013, Tomlinson was awarded a Fellow of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science. More recently, he was made a fellow of University College London and received honorary Doctorates of Science from the University of Nottingham, Acadia University, McGill University, and the University of Lethbridge. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and was awarded the Order of Canada by the Governor General for "changing the face of geography as a discipline." In 2013, he was promoted to Officer of the Order of Canada by the Governor General.

See also Arthur Getis – American geographer and spatial statistician Cynthia Brewer – American geographer (born 1960) Duane Marble – American geographer (1931–2022) George F. Jenks – American geographer and cartographer Jack Dangermond – American billionaire businessman Michael DeMers – American geographer and fiction writer Michael Frank Goodchild – British-American geographer Technical geography – Study of spatial information Waldo Tobler – American geographerPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets

References

External links

Interview with Dr. Tomlinson in ESRI News Fall 2001 issue Announcement from McGill University granting Dr. Tomlinson an honorary Doctor of Science degree at the May 31, 2006 convocation. Videos of Dr. Tomlinson from the video.esri.com site Conversation with Dr. Tomlinson from 2009

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Roger Tomlinson

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Roger Tomlinson 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 Roger Tomlinson 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 Roger Tomlinson 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 Roger Tomlinson

In research: Roger Tomlinson 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 Roger Tomlinson 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: Roger Tomlinson is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1933 births, 2014 deaths, 20th-century Royal Air Force personnel, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Roger Tomlinson 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 Roger Tomlinson in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Roger Tomlinson in simple terms?

Why does Roger Tomlinson 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 Roger Tomlinson?

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 Roger Tomlinson.