astronomy

Subrata Dasgupta

Subrata Dasgupta 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 Subrata Dasgupta rather than just read about it. In short: Subrata Dasgupta is a bi-cultural multidisciplinary scholar, scientist, and writer. Born in Calcutta (in 1944), he was educated in England, India, and Canada.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Subrata Dasgupta is a bi-cultural multidisciplinary scholar, scientist, and writer. Born in Calcutta (in 1944), he was educated in England, India, and Canada.

Education He received his schooling at Bemrose School, Derby (UK) and La Martiniere Calcutta. He holds a first class bachelor of engineering (B.E.) degree in metallurgy from the University of Calcutta having studied at Bengal Engineering College (later, Bengal Engineering and Science University, now the Indian Institutes of Engineering Science and Technology), India’s second oldest engineering school. His graduate studies were at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, where he obtained the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science in 1974 and 1976 respectively.

Career

Academic Dasgupta is presently professor emeritus, School of Computing & Informatics, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where from 1993 to 2018 he held the Computer Science Trust Fund Eminent Scholar Chair. From 1999 to 2013 he was also Director, Institute of Cognitive Science and Professor, Department of History. He had previously taught at Ohio State University, Simon Fraser University, University of Alberta, and the University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology (where he was the first Dowty Professor of Computer Systems Engineering). He has been a visiting scholar at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Universities of Aachen and Oldenberg, Simon Fraser University, Indian Institute of Science, and the Government of India's Center for the Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). He has served as a consultant for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Dasgupta has featured in interviews and articles in multiple BBC Radio programs, British national newspapers and magazines, Indian national newspapers, and regional Spanish and Canadian newspapers. His biographical entries appear in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World, Writers Directory, and Contemporary Authors. He is the recipient of an Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award from the Marquis Who’s Who Publication Board. Subrata Dasgupta's research from 1972 through 1991 spanned such branches of computer science as computer architecture, microprogramming, hardware description languages and design theory. From 1992 his focus has been on the cognitive historical studies of creativity and the history and philosophy of science and technology.

Computer Science and the Sciences of the Artificial Influenced by Herbert Simon’s seminal book The Sciences of the Artificial, Dasgupta has written extensively on the historical, epistemological and cognitive nature of the artificial sciences and, in particular, on computer science as a science of the artificial. His books include: The Design and Description of Computer Architectures (John Wiley, 1984), Computer Architecture: A Modern Synthesis. Volume 1: Foundations and Volume 2: Advanced Topics (John Wiley, 1989), Design Theory and Computer Science (Cambridge University Press, 1991), and It Began with Babbage : The Genesis of Computer Science (Oxford University Press, 2014) (selected as an 'Outstanding Academic Title for 2014' by the journal Choice), Computer Science: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2016; a volume in OUP’s best-selling and prestigious “Very Short Introduction” series), and most recently, The Second Age of Computer Science: From Algol Genes to Neural Nets (Oxford University Press, 2018).

Cognitive-Historical Studies of Creativity He has published numerous papers and essays on the cognitive-historical-biographical aspects of creativity in art, science, technology and scholarship in such print journals as Perspectives on Science, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, Notes & Records of the Royal Society, Creativity Research Journal, Physics News, Physics of Life Reviews and the online journal PsyArt. His books include Creativity in Invention and Design (Cambridge University Press, 1994), Technology and Creativity (Oxford University Press, 1996), Jagadis Chandra Bose and the Indian Response to Western Science (Oxford University Press, 1999), Twilight of the Bengal Renaissance: R.K. Dasgupta and His Quest for a World Mind (Dey’s Publishing, 2005), The Bengal Renaissance: Identity and Creativity from Rammohun Roy to Rabindranath Tagore (Permanent Black, 2007), and Awakening: The Story of the Bengal Renaissance (Random House India, 2010), and, most recently, A Cognitive Historical Approach to Creativity (Routledge 2019) and The Renaissance Considered as a Creative Phenomenon (Routledge 2022).

Creative Writing He has published three novels, Three Times a Minority (Writers Workshop Calcutta, 2003), The Golden Jubilee (Amaryllis, 2013), Voice of the Rain Season (Fingerprint, 2018), and a memoir of his childhood in England, Salaam Stanley Matthews (Granta, 2006).

Books The Renaissance Considered as a Creative Phenomenon, 2022 A Cognitive Historical Approach to Creativity, 2019 Voice of the Rain Season (Novel), 2018 The Second Age of Computer Science: From Algol Genes to Neural Nets, 2018 Computer Science: A Very Short Introduction, 2016 It Began with Babbage: The Genesis of Computer Science, 2014 The Golden Jubilee (Novel), 2013 The Awakening: The Story of the Bengal Renaissance, 2010 Bengal Renaissance: Identity and Creativity from Rammohun Roy to Rabindranath Tagore, 2007 Salaam Stanley Matthews (Memoir), 2006 Twilight of the Bengal Renaissance: R.K. Dasgupta and his Quest for a World Mind, 2003 Three Times a Minority (Novel), 2003 Jagadis Chandra Bose and the Indian Response to Western Science, 2000 Technology and Creativity, 1996 Creativity in Invention and Design, 1994 Design Theory and Computer Science (Cambridge Tracts in Theoretical Computer Science), 1991 Computer Architecture: A Modern Synthesis, Volume 1: Foundations, 1988 Computer Architecture, Volume 2: Advanced Topics, 1989 Design and Description of Computer Architectures, 1984

Personal Information He is married to Sarmistha Dasgupta, daughter of the comparative literature scholar and intellectual historian Rabindra Kumar Das Gupta, the first director of the Indian National Library. He has two sons, Jaideep and Shome.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Subrata Dasgupta

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Subrata Dasgupta 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 Subrata Dasgupta 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 Subrata Dasgupta 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 Subrata Dasgupta

In research: Subrata Dasgupta 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 Subrata Dasgupta 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: Subrata Dasgupta is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1944 births, Academic staff of RWTH Aachen University, Academic staff of Simon Fraser University, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Subrata Dasgupta 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 Subrata Dasgupta in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Subrata Dasgupta in simple terms?

Subrata Dasgupta is a bi-cultural multidisciplinary scholar, scientist, and writer. Born in Calcutta (in 1944), he was educated in England, India, and Canada.

Why does Subrata Dasgupta 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 Subrata Dasgupta?

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 Subrata Dasgupta.