astronomy

Roland Levinsky

Roland Levinsky 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 Roland Levinsky rather than just read about it. In short: Professor Roland Levinsky (16 October 1943 – 1 January 2007) was an academic researcher in biomedicine and a university senior manager. His last post, which he held at the time of his death, was as vice-chancellor of the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Professor Roland Levinsky (16 October 1943 – 1 January 2007) was an academic researcher in biomedicine and a university senior manager. His last post, which he held at the time of his death, was as vice-chancellor of the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom.

Personal life Levinsky was born on 16 October 1943 in Bloemfontein, South Africa, to Jewish parents. His father emigrated from the Lithuania/Poland area to South Africa to escape persecution; many of his relatives died in Nazi-German death camps. Levinsky noted that "Father was a communist and we had our fair share of police raids."

Career Levinsky's initial specialisation was as a paediatrician, and he became a world leader in research on immunodeficiency diseases. He worked for several years at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London where he performed Britain's first successful bone marrow transplant. Subsequently, from 1990, he served as dean and director of research at the Institute of Child Health of University College, London, and from 1999 until he moved to Plymouth. In 1998, he was an inaugural Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

University of Plymouth He was appointed as Vice-Provost for Biomedicine and Head of the Graduate School of the college. He had over 250 scientific publications to his credit. On his appointment as the University of Plymouth's second vice-chancellor in September 2002, Levinsky set himself to lift the university from its then position as one of the leading post-1992 universities to rival much older and more research-intensive institutions. To do so, he was willing to take unpopular decisions, such as the concentration of the university's teaching (outside the health arena) in Plymouth itself, with the closure of its campuses in Exeter, Newton Abbot (the former Seale-Hayne Agricultural College), and Exmouth (the former Rolle College of Education, moved to Plymouth in 2008). These moves undoubtedly gave Plymouth more the structure of the longer-established UK universities, and its position in the education media's league tables rose sharply in his period of office.

Death Levinsky was killed on 1 January 2007 in an accident while out walking in stormy weather with his wife, on New Year's Day 2007. High winds blew down overhead power cables in a field near his house in Wembury, and a live cable touched him, causing his electrocution. The new Arts building, opened in September 2007 was named The Roland Levinsky Building in his honour. A memorial fund was also established in his name.

References

External links BBC News article reporting his death Special announcement by University of Plymouth following Professor Levinsky's death (archived) Memorial Fund to honour the name of Roland Levinsky

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Roland Levinsky

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Roland Levinsky 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 Roland Levinsky 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 Roland Levinsky 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 Roland Levinsky

In research: Roland Levinsky 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 Roland Levinsky 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: Roland Levinsky is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1943 births, 2007 deaths, 20th-century British medical doctors, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Roland Levinsky 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 Roland Levinsky in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Roland Levinsky in simple terms?

Why does Roland Levinsky 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 Roland Levinsky?

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 Roland Levinsky.