science

The Sunless City

The Sunless City 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 Sunless City rather than just read about it. In short: The Sunless City: From the Papers and Diaries of the Late Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin (or simply The Sunless City) is a dime novel written by J. E.

Key takeaways

The Sunless City 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 Sunless City to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Sunless City from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Sunless City: From the Papers and Diaries of the Late Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin (or simply The Sunless City) is a dime novel written by J. E. Preston Muddock in 1905. The novel is about a prospector named Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin who explores a bottomless lake in a submarine, and discovers a land where the norms of society are backwards. The title character is the namesake for the city of Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada.

Plot The story centres on the lead character, a prospector named Professor Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin. Flonatin travels by submarine through a bottomless lake in the Rocky Mountains. While exploring the lake's depths, he discovers a strange city. In this city, the currency is tin, the streets are paved with gold, and women rule. Flonatin, a bachelor, escapes by climbing out of a crater, which is an extinct volcano.

Flin Flon, Manitoba

The Sunless City had been read by Thomas Creighton, a prospector who had been exploring in the area of what would become the town of Flin Flon. In 1915 Creighton and some fellow prospectors discovered mineralization, and Creighton named the discovery "Flin Flon". There are various accounts as to how the discovery (which would become the namesake of the city) was named. In one account an associate of Creighton had brought some gold out of a hole from one of their claims, according to this account Creighton said:

That must be the hole where old Flin Flon came up and shook his whiskers, so what do you say we call the discovery Flin Flon? A second account of the naming of the discovery suggests that the back pages of the book were missing (stopping at the point in the novel where Flonatin is climbing out of the crater), following Creighton's reading of the book, he approaches a deep hole, approximately 10 feet (3.0 m) wide, and said to his associates:

Boys, I guess we've found old Flin Flon's mine. In 1962, a statue designed by Al Capp of Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin was built in Flin Flon. In 1978, the National Film Board of Canada produced the short documentary Canada Vignettes: Flin Flon about the origin of the city's name.

References

External links Works related to The Sunless City at Wikisource

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Sunless City

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Sunless City 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 Sunless City 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 Sunless City 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 Sunless City

In research: The Sunless City 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 Sunless City 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 Sunless City is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1905 British novels, 1905 English-language novels, British science fiction novels, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Sunless City 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 Sunless City in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is The Sunless City in simple terms?

The Sunless City: From the Papers and Diaries of the Late Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin (or simply The Sunless City) is a dime novel written by J. E.

Why does The Sunless City 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 Sunless City?

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 Sunless City.