astronomy

Ted Selker

Ted Selker 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 Ted Selker rather than just read about it. In short: Edwin Joseph Selker, better known as Ted Selker, is an American computer scientist known for his user interface inventions. Biography Selker graduated from Brown University in 1979 with a BS in Applied Mathematics, and from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with an MS in Computer and Information Sciences in 1981.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Edwin Joseph Selker, better known as Ted Selker, is an American computer scientist known for his user interface inventions.

Biography Selker graduated from Brown University in 1979 with a BS in Applied Mathematics, and from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with an MS in Computer and Information Sciences in 1981. From June 1981 to 1983 he worked as research assistant in the Stanford University, Robotics Laboratory. One of his projects was a collaborative display system for the WAITS system of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL). He worked for Atari for a year, then returned to Stanford to teach for a year. Selker joined IBM in August 1985, first at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center. He graduated with a PhD from City University of New York in 1992. His thesis was titled "A Framework for Proactive Interactive Adaptive Computer Help". He then moved to the IBM Almaden Research Center where he founded and directed the User Systems Ergonomics Research lab. He was made an IBM Fellow in 1996. Selker holds 67 US patents. He developed the pointing stick (known as TrackPoint) technology which are the distinctive feature of the ThinkPad line of laptop computers (designed, developed and sold by IBM but produced by Lenovo since 2005). Selker joined the MIT faculty in September 1999. He headed the Context Aware Computing group at the MIT Media Lab and was the MIT director of The Voting Technology Project and Design Intelligence. He joined the faculty of Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley In November 2008 to help create its PhD program and to head the Considerate Systems group. From June to August 2011 he was the Director of Research at start-up Scanadu. Scanadu aims to turn smart phones into medical monitoring devices. He has taught at Stanford University, Hampshire College, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Brown University and consulted at Xerox PARC. His work often takes the form of bleeding edge prototype concept products, for example hybrid search engines, and is supported by cognitive science research into human computer interaction. He is regarded as a pioneer in the field of context awareness and has been cited in the media. Selker's technologies have been featured on Good Morning America, ABC, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, NPR, and the Discovery channel among others. In recognition of his work in voting technology; he was co-recipient of computer science policy leader award for Scientific American 50 in 2004, and in the American Association for People with Disabilities Thomas Paine award in 2006. He advocates a crowd model of innovation that he calls Excubation. He is married with two children.

References

External links Context Aware Computing group homepage Ted Selker election research papers

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ted Selker

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ted Selker 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 Ted Selker 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 Ted Selker 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 Ted Selker

In research: Ted Selker 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 Ted Selker 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: Ted Selker is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American computer scientists, Atari people, Brown University alumni, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ted Selker 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 Ted Selker in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Ted Selker in simple terms?

Edwin Joseph Selker, better known as Ted Selker, is an American computer scientist known for his user interface inventions. Biography Selker graduated from Brown University in 1979 with a BS in Applied Mathematics, and from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with an MS in Computer and Informat…

Why does Ted Selker 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 Ted Selker?

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 Ted Selker.