astronomy

Shigehisa Kuriyama

Shigehisa Kuriyama 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 Shigehisa Kuriyama rather than just read about it. In short: Shigehisa "Hisa" Kuriyama (栗山茂久, Kuriyama Shigehisa) is a Japanologist and historian of medicine. He is the Reischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History at Harvard University.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Shigehisa "Hisa" Kuriyama (栗山茂久, Kuriyama Shigehisa) is a Japanologist and historian of medicine. He is the Reischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History at Harvard University.

Early life and education Kuriyama was born in Marugame, Japan. After his family moved for a time to the US, he studied at Phillips Exeter Academy. Subsequently, he attended Harvard for all three of his degrees. He earned an A.B. degree from its Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations in 1977 and an A.M. degree in 1978. Afterwards, he received three years of training in acupuncture in Tokyo. He earned his Ph.D. at Harvard's Department of the History of Science in 1986 under Barbara Rosenkrantz.

Career Kuriyama has taught at the University of New Hampshire, Emory University (where he was the Chair for its Institute for the Liberal Arts (ILA)) in Atlanta, Georgia, and the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto, Japan. He authored The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine (1999), a study of the different views of health and medicine held by the ancient Western civilization and Eastern civilizations. This book won the 2001 William H. Welch Medal of the American Association for the History of Medicine. Kuriyama joined the Harvard faculty as Reischauer Professor in 2005. In 2013 he delivered the Edwin O. Reischauer Lectures, "What Truly Matters."

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Shigehisa Kuriyama

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Shigehisa Kuriyama 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 Shigehisa Kuriyama 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 Shigehisa Kuriyama 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 Shigehisa Kuriyama

In research: Shigehisa Kuriyama 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 Shigehisa Kuriyama 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: Shigehisa Kuriyama is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American Japanologists, American academics of Japanese descent, American medical biography stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Shigehisa Kuriyama 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 Shigehisa Kuriyama in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Shigehisa Kuriyama in simple terms?

Shigehisa "Hisa" Kuriyama (栗山茂久, Kuriyama Shigehisa) is a Japanologist and historian of medicine. He is the Reischauer Institute Professor of Cultural History at Harvard University.

Why does Shigehisa Kuriyama 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 Shigehisa Kuriyama?

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 Shigehisa Kuriyama.