astronomy

Thomas F. Coleman

Thomas F. Coleman 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 Thomas F. Coleman rather than just read about it. In short: Thomas F. Coleman (1950–2021) was a Canadian mathematician and computer scientist who is a Professor in the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization at the University of Waterloo, where he held the Ophelia Lazaridis University Research Chair.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Thomas F. Coleman (1950–2021) was a Canadian mathematician and computer scientist who is a Professor in the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization at the University of Waterloo, where he held the Ophelia Lazaridis University Research Chair. In addition, Coleman was the director of WatRISQ, an institute composed of quantitative and computational finance researchers spanning several Faculties at the University of Waterloo. His research focused on mathematical optimization.

Education Coleman earned his PhD from University of Waterloo in 1979 with the dissertation A Superlinear Penalty Function Method to Solve the Nonlinear Programming Problem supervised by Andrew Conn. He followed that up with a two-year postdoctoral appointment in the Applied Mathematics Division at Argonne National Laboratory.

Career From 1981 to 2005, Coleman was a professor of computer science at Cornell University. From 1998 to 2005 he served as the director of Cornell Theory Center, now Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing From 2005 to 2010, Coleman served as the dean of the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo. During his tenure as Cornell Theory Center director, Coleman founded and directed a computational finance academic-industry-government venture located at 55 Broad Street in New York, which shaped into Cornell Financial Engineering Manhattan. He died of cancer on April 20, 2021.

Awards and honors Coleman was selected a SIAM Fellow in 2016 "for his contributions to financial optimization, sparse numerical optimization and leadership in mathematical education and industry engagement".

References

External links Thomas F. Coleman publications indexed by Google Scholar

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Thomas F. Coleman

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Thomas F. Coleman 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 Thomas F. Coleman 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 Thomas F. Coleman 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 Thomas F. Coleman

In research: Thomas F. Coleman 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 Thomas F. Coleman 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: Thomas F. Coleman is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1950 births, 2021 deaths, Academic staff of the University of Waterloo, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Thomas F. Coleman 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 Thomas F. Coleman in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Thomas F. Coleman in simple terms?

Why does Thomas F. Coleman 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 Thomas F. Coleman?

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 Thomas F. Coleman.