astronomy

Timandra Harkness

Timandra Harkness 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 Timandra Harkness rather than just read about it. In short: Timandra Harkness is a British writer, presenter and comedian. She has contributed to several publications, including BBC Science Focus magazine and The Daily Telegraph, and authored the book Big Data: Does Size Matter?.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Timandra Harkness is a British writer, presenter and comedian. She has contributed to several publications, including BBC Science Focus magazine and The Daily Telegraph, and authored the book Big Data: Does Size Matter?. Harkness has co-written and performed comedy shows related to science and mathematics, including collaborations with her mother Linda Cotterill and comedian Matt Parker. Since 2016, she has chaired the Data Debate series for the Alan Turing Institute and the British Library. She is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and a visiting fellow at the University of Winchester's Centre for Information Rights.

Education Harkness has a BA in Film and Drama with Art from Bulmershe College and a BSc in Mathematics & Statistics from the Open University, awarded in 2017. In 2021, she began postgraduate study in Philosophy at Birkbeck College, London, completing an MA degree in 2023.

Career

Writer Harkness has written about technology for BBC Science Focus magazine, about statistics for Significance (a popular science magazine published by the Royal Statistical Society), and about motorcycles for The Daily Telegraph. Harkness is the author of the book Big Data: Does Size Matter? Her second book Technology is not the Problem was published in May 2024.

Broadcaster Harkness' work for BBC Radio 4 includes an afternoon play, documentaries, being a roving reporter for The Human Zoo and presenting FutureProofing, a series about the future potential of science.

Performer In 1999, Harkness co-wrote a comedy with her mother Linda Cotterill, called No Future in Eternity, about an astronomer who shares a flat with two angels. They received a grant from the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, John Campbell Brown, to perform the show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2000. The show was subsequently broadcast as an afternoon play on BBC Radio 4. Since 2004, Harkness has collaborated with Dr Helen Pilcher, as a comedy duo named the Comedy Research Project, writing and performing stand-up shows about science. In 2012, Harkness and fellow comedian Matt Parker co-wrote a comedy show called Your Days are Numbered: The Maths of Death. They performed the show in Australia, at the Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne International Comedy Festival, on tour around England and in Scotland, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Harkness returned to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2019 to perform a one-woman show, called Take a Risk.

Data engagement Since 2016, Harkness has chaired the Data Debate for the Alan Turing Institute and the British Library, a series of panel discussions about big data and its implications for society. She has spoken at the Hay Festival, the Battle of Ideas, TEDx, The Scotsman Data Conference and the Cheltenham Science Festival. Harkness is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), a founding member of their special interest group on Data Ethics. She was elected to serve on the Council of the RSS from 2024, and took over the chair of the editorial board of their magazine Significance at that time. Harkness is also a visiting fellow at the University of Winchester's Centre for Information Rights.

Awards In 1997, Harkness won a column-writing competition, organised by The Independent newspaper.

Publications Big Data: Does Size Matter (2016)

Radio No Future In Eternity (2001) Data, Data, Everywhere (2014) Personality Politics (2014) FutureProofing (2014–present) Hindsight Bias (2015) Perfect People (2015) Supersense Me (2017) The Why Factor: Are You A Numbers Person? (2017) How to Disagree: A Beginner's Guide to Having Better Arguments (2018) The Infinite Monkey Cage: Big Data (2018) Divided Nation (2019) What Has Sat-Nav Done to Our Brains? (2019) Five Knots (2020) Steelmanning (2021)

Comedy The Comedy Research Project (2004) Your Days Are Numbered - The Maths of Death (2012) Brainsex (2013) Take A Risk (2019)

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Timandra Harkness

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Timandra Harkness 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 Timandra Harkness 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 Timandra Harkness 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 Timandra Harkness

In research: Timandra Harkness 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 Timandra Harkness 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: Timandra Harkness is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century English comedians, Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London, Alumni of the Open University, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Timandra Harkness 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 Timandra Harkness in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Timandra Harkness in simple terms?

Why does Timandra Harkness 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 Timandra Harkness?

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 Timandra Harkness.