astronomy

William Gasarch

William Gasarch 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 William Gasarch rather than just read about it. In short: William Ian Gasarch ( gə-SARSH; born 1959) is an American computer scientist known for his work in computational complexity theory, computability theory, computational learning theory, and Ramsey theory. He is currently a professor at the University of Maryland Department of Computer Science with an affiliate appointment in Mathematics.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

William Ian Gasarch ( gə-SARSH; born 1959) is an American computer scientist known for his work in computational complexity theory, computability theory, computational learning theory, and Ramsey theory. He is currently a professor at the University of Maryland Department of Computer Science with an affiliate appointment in Mathematics. Gasarch is a frequent mentor of high school student research projects; one of these, with Jacob Lurie, won the 1996 Westinghouse Science Talent Search for Lurie. He has co-blogged on computational complexity with Lance Fortnow since 2007. He was book review editor for ACM SIGACT NEWS from 1997 to 2015.

Education Gasarch received his doctorate in computer science from Harvard in 1985, advised by Harry R. Lewis. His thesis was titled Recursion-Theoretic Techniques in Complexity Theory and Combinatorics. He was hired into a tenure track professorial job at the University of Maryland in the Fall of 1985. He was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 1991, and to full professor in 1998.

Work Gasarch co-founded (with Richard Beigel) the field of Bounded Queries in Recursion Theory and has written many papers in the area capped off by a book on the topic co-authored with Georgia Martin, titled Bounded Queries in Recursion Theory. He has published books such as Problems with a Point, a book with a broad view on mathematics and theoretical computer science which he co-authored with Clyde Kruskal and includes works by other professors such as David Eppstein. He also co-founded the subfield of recursion-theoretic inductive inference named Learning via Queries with Carl Smith. More recently he has been more involved with combinatorics, notably Ramsey Theory. He has written three surveys of what theorists think of the P vs NP problem: in 2002, 2012, and 2019. In 2020 he wrote Mathematical Muffin Morsels: Nobody Wants a Small Piece with Erik Metz, Jacob Prinz, and Daniel Smolyak.

Blog Lance Fortnow began writing a blog on theoretical computer science with an emphasis on complexity theory in 2002. Gasarch was a frequent guest blogger until 2007 when he became an official co-blogger.

References

External links Gasarch's Homepage

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with William Gasarch

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what William Gasarch 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 William Gasarch 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 William Gasarch 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 William Gasarch

In research: William Gasarch 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 William Gasarch 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: William Gasarch is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1959 births, 21st-century American science writers, American computer scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for William Gasarch 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 William Gasarch in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is William Gasarch in simple terms?

Why does William Gasarch 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 William Gasarch?

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 William Gasarch.