science

Visions Before Midnight

Visions Before Midnight 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 Visions Before Midnight rather than just read about it. In short: Visions Before Midnight is a selection of the television criticism written by Clive James during his first four years (1972–1976) as The Observer's weekly television critic. The selection begins with a piece on the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, and ends with a piece on the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Visions Before Midnight is a selection of the television criticism written by Clive James during his first four years (1972–1976) as The Observer's weekly television critic. The selection begins with a piece on the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, and ends with a piece on the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. It was first published in 1977. The title derives from Sir Thomas Browne: Dreams out of the ivory gate, and visions before midnight. Before being contracted by Observer editor David Astor, James had written one piece per month on television for The Listener and its editor, Karl Miller, had been an important influence on James. He had allowed him to "write a column which eschewed solemnity so thoroughly that it courted the frivolous. Like Lichtenberg Karl Miller appreciated the kind of joke that unveils a problem: if your gags had a serious reason for being there, they stayed in." James explains in the preface: "Television was a natural part of my life. I loved watching it and I loved being on it. The second passion has since somewhat faded, but the first remains strong, and was very powerful at the time. I watched just about everything, including the junk. The screen teemed with unsummable activity. It was full of visions, legends, myths, fables. T.V was scarcely something you could feel superior to. It was too various. What I had to offer was negative capability, a capability for submission to the medium. I was the first to submit myself to Alastair Burnet and find him fascinating. No critic before me had ever regarded David Vine as a reason for switching the set on." In the preface James says that the idea of publishing a selection of his television criticism had been in his mind since speaking with Kenneth Tynan at a reception at the Garrick Club. Tynan had said he hoped James would publish some of his criticism but averred that, "A television critic would have to know everything, and who knows everything?" James had been lost for an answer at the time but in the preface replies, "It isn't necessary to know everything – just to remember that nobody else does either."

References

External links Visions Before Midnight on Clive James' official website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Visions Before Midnight

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Visions Before Midnight 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 Visions Before Midnight 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 Visions Before Midnight 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 Visions Before Midnight

In research: Visions Before Midnight 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 Visions Before Midnight 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: Visions Before Midnight is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1970s in British television, 1977 non-fiction books, Books about television, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Visions Before Midnight 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 Visions Before Midnight in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Visions Before Midnight in simple terms?

Why does Visions Before Midnight 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 Visions Before Midnight?

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 Visions Before Midnight.