astronomy

Jack Copeland

Jack Copeland 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 Jack Copeland rather than just read about it. In short: Brian Jack Copeland (born 1950) is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, and author of books on the computing pioneer Alan Turing. Education Copeland was educated at the University of Oxford, obtaining a Bachelor of Philosophy degree and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1978, where he undertook research on modal logic and non-classical logic supervised by Dana Scott.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Brian Jack Copeland (born 1950) is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, and author of books on the computing pioneer Alan Turing.

Education Copeland was educated at the University of Oxford, obtaining a Bachelor of Philosophy degree and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1978, where he undertook research on modal logic and non-classical logic supervised by Dana Scott.

Career and research Jack Copeland is the Director of the Turing Archive for the History of Computing, an extensive online archive on the computing pioneer Alan Turing. He has also written and edited books on Turing. He is one of the people responsible for identifying the concept of hypercomputation and machines more capable than Turing machines. With Jason Long he restored some of the first computer music recorded on the Ferranti Mark I. Copeland has held visiting professorships at the University of Sydney, Australia (1997, 2002), the University of Aarhus, Denmark (1999), the University of Melbourne, Australia (2002, 2003), and the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom (1997–2005). In 2000, he was a Senior Fellow in the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States. Copeland is also President of the US Society for Machines and Mentality and a member of the UK Bletchley Park Trust Heritage Advisory Panel. He is the founding editor of The Rutherford Journal, established in 2005.

Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot suggested the establishment of a Turing Center in Zurich during a guest stay at ETH Zurich in 2012. The idea was implemented and ETH Zurich was able to open the Turing Center Zurich in 2015. It is operational organizes regular conferences on questions related to computers and artificial intelligence.

The Rutherford Journal

Copeland serves as editor-in-chief of The Rutherford Journal, an open-access peer-reviewed online academic journal published in New Zealand that covers the history and philosophy of science and technology. The journal is published as needed and was established in December 2005 by Copeland. The full text of articles is freely available online in HTML format. The journal is named after the New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937), who studied at the Canterbury College (Christchurch). The journal is indexed in various index lists. It was listed in an article on electronic journals in the Journal for the Association of History and Computing and included in the Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences. The journal features technology as diverse as totalisators and the CSIRAC computer.

Publications Artificial Intelligence: A Philosophical Introduction (Blackwell, 1993, 2nd edition due) ISBN 0-631-18385-X Logic and Reality Essays on the Legacy of Arthur Prior (Oxford University Press, 1996) ISBN 0-19-824060-0 The Essential Turing (Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 0-19-825080-0 (pbk); ISBN 0-19-825079-7 (hbk) Alan Turing’s Automatic Computing Engine: The Master Codebreaker's Struggle to Build the Modern Computer (Oxford University Press, 2005) ISBN 0-19-856593-3 Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers (Oxford University Press, 2006) ISBN 0-19-284055-X Alan Turing’s Electronic Brain: The Struggle to Build the ACE, the World’s Fastest Computer (Oxford University Press, 2012) ISBN 978-0-19-960915-4 Computability: Turing, Gödel, Church, and Beyond (MIT Press, 2013). ISBN 978-0-262-52748-4 (with Carl Posy and Oron Shagrir) Turing: Pioneer of the Information Age (Oxford University Press, 2014: Paperback edition) ISBN 978-0-19-871918-2 The Turing Guide (Oxford University Press, 2017) ISBN 978-0-19-874782-6 (hardcover), ISBN 978-0-19-874783-3 (paperback) (with Jonathan Bowen, Robin Wilson, Mark Sprevak, et al.)

Awards and honours Copeland was awarded Lecturer of the Year 2010 by the University of Canterbury's student union.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jack Copeland

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jack Copeland 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 Jack Copeland 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 Jack Copeland 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 Jack Copeland

In research: Jack Copeland 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 Jack Copeland 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: Jack Copeland is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1950 births, 20th-century English philosophers, 20th-century New Zealand philosophers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jack Copeland 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 Jack Copeland in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Jack Copeland in simple terms?

Brian Jack Copeland (born 1950) is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, and author of books on the computing pioneer Alan Turing. Education Copeland was educated at the University of Oxford, obtaining a Bachelor of Philosophy degree and a Doctor of Phi…

Why does Jack Copeland 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 Jack Copeland?

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 Jack Copeland.