science

Thok Jalung

Thok Jalung 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 Thok Jalung rather than just read about it. In short: Thok Jalung was a goldfield in Tibet that gained international attention upon its discovery by the west. Thok Jalung was one of many goldfields that stretched from Lhasa into western Tibet, north of the Tsangpo River watershed.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Thok Jalung was a goldfield in Tibet that gained international attention upon its discovery by the west. Thok Jalung was one of many goldfields that stretched from Lhasa into western Tibet, north of the Tsangpo River watershed. Situated on the Changtang, 16,330 feet (4,980 m) above sea level, Thok Jalung was the highest altitude goldfield in the world and at the time was believed to be the highest altitude in the world inhabited all year round. Thok Jalung was first visited by a non-Tibetan on 26 August 1867 when the pundit Nain Singh Rawat, who was secretly surveying Tibet, visited the mines. He would later say that Thok Jalung was the coldest place he had ever visited. It was not until 1906 that the first European visited Thok Jalung. Thok Jalung was very productive and Nain Singh reported seeing one nugget weighing nearly 2 pounds (0.91 kg). The goldfield was about 1 mile (1.6 km) long, with a small stream running through the field, used to wash the gold out of the soil. Miners lived in yak-hair tents pitched in holes two or more metres below the ground. There were about 300 miners during the summer and over 6,000 during winter, as frozen ground was less likely to collapse. As in many cases the miners' families were also staying onsite, one author has suggested a winter population of 20,000 at Thok Jalung. Tibetans believed that gold nuggets contained life and were the parents of gold dust. They only extracted the dust. If a nugget was excavated in error from Thok Jalung it was immediately reburied.

References

Sources Cooley, W. (1876) Physical Geography: Or The Terraqueous Globe and Its Phenomena, Dulau and Company. Hopkirk, P. (1982) Trespassers on the roof of the world, John Murray: London. ISBN 0719539382. Markham, C. (1999) Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet and of the Journey of Thomas Manning to Lhasa, Asian Educational Services: New Delhi. ISBN 9788120613669. Montgomerie, T. (1869) "Report of the Trans-Himalayan Explorations during 1867", Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Vol. 13, No. 3 (1868 - 1869) Waller, D. (2015) The Pundits: British Exploration of Tibet and Central Asia, University Press of Kentucky: Lexington, Kentucky. ISBN 9780813149042.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Thok Jalung

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Thok Jalung 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 Thok Jalung 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 Thok Jalung 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 Thok Jalung

In research: Thok Jalung 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 Thok Jalung 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: Thok Jalung is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Gold mining, History of Tibet, Tibet, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Thok Jalung 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 Thok Jalung in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Thok Jalung in simple terms?

Why does Thok Jalung 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 Thok Jalung?

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 Thok Jalung.