astronomy

Suelette Dreyfus

Suelette Dreyfus 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 Suelette Dreyfus rather than just read about it. In short: Suelette Dreyfus is an Australian technology researcher, journalist, and academic. She is a lecturer in the Department of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne, as well as the principal researcher on the impact of digital technologies on whistleblowing as a form of freedom of expression.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Suelette Dreyfus is an Australian technology researcher, journalist, and academic. She is a lecturer in the Department of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne, as well as the principal researcher on the impact of digital technologies on whistleblowing as a form of freedom of expression. Her research includes information systems, digital security, privacy, and the impact of technology on whistleblowing, health informatics and e-education.

Career Dreyfus' work in e-health has focused on the patient information experience in the health system and the role of technology in error incident reporting in hospital settings. She has co-invented prototypes in information design for pathology reports with the aim of allowing doctors to improve communication with patients and families regarding the status of their diseases in progressive and chronic illnesses such as diabetes. Her research in education has focused on using social media to teach foreign language to English-speaking primary school students, particularly for difficult languages that require more hours of practice such as Asian languages. Dreyfus has written on the importance of protecting Freedom of Information access (FOI), the problems of information asymmetry and "tool asymmetry" between the individual citizen and the state, and the trend of "security clearance creep". She was a member of the WikiLeaks advisory board. Her essays have also appeared in The Conversation, discussing the importance of protecting public access to strong encryption, the need for legal protections for whistleblowers, and the security paradox of legislation enforcing retention of metadata for two years for everyone in Australia.

Underground

She is the author of the 1997 book Underground: Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier. The book describes the exploits of a group of Australian, American, and British hackers during the late 1980s and early 1990s, among them Julian Assange who is credited as a researcher for the book. Dreyfus released it in e-version in 2001 for free. Dreyfus was an Associate Producer and interview subject for the documentary In the Realm of the Hackers, inspired by Underground, in 2003.

References

External links Underground: Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier (Archived 21 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine) Works by or about Suelette Dreyfus at the Internet Archive

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Suelette Dreyfus

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Suelette Dreyfus 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 Suelette Dreyfus 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 Suelette Dreyfus 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 Suelette Dreyfus

In research: Suelette Dreyfus 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 Suelette Dreyfus 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: Suelette Dreyfus is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Academic staff of the University of Melbourne, Activists from Melbourne, Australian computer specialists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Suelette Dreyfus 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 Suelette Dreyfus in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Suelette Dreyfus in simple terms?

Why does Suelette Dreyfus 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 Suelette Dreyfus?

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 Suelette Dreyfus.