science

The Noonday Demon

The Noonday Demon is a science 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 The Noonday Demon rather than just read about it. In short: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression is a memoir written by Andrew Solomon and first published under the Scribner imprint of New York's Simon & Schuster publishing house in 2001. There was a later paperback under the Touchstone imprint.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression is a memoir written by Andrew Solomon and first published under the Scribner imprint of New York's Simon & Schuster publishing house in 2001. There was a later paperback under the Touchstone imprint. The Noonday Demon examines the personal, cultural, and scientific aspects of depression through Solomon's published interviews with depression sufferers, doctors, research scientists, politicians, and pharmaceutical researchers. It is an outgrowth of Solomon's 1998 New Yorker article on depression.

Reception The Noonday Demon received positive critical response, being described by The New York Times as "a book of remarkable scope, depth, breadth, and vitality." The book was honored in 2001 with the National Book Award for Nonfiction and the Lambda Literary Award for autobiography or memoir. In 2002 it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. In 2019, the memoir was ranked 23rd on The Guardian's list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.

Updated edition A new edition was published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 2015 that added a chapter about new treatments for depression. The update was mentioned during an NPR Fresh Air interview with Solomon and a New York Times article he authored.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Noonday Demon

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Noonday Demon claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, 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 The Noonday Demon 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 The Noonday Demon 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 The Noonday Demon

In research: The Noonday Demon appears in science 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 The Noonday Demon 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: The Noonday Demon is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2001 English-language non-fiction books, 2001 LGBTQ-related literary works, 2001 non-fiction books, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Noonday Demon 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 The Noonday Demon in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is The Noonday Demon in simple terms?

Why does The Noonday Demon matter?

Because it connects several science 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 The Noonday Demon?

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 The Noonday Demon.