physics

Guyford Stever

Guyford Stever is a physics 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 Guyford Stever rather than just read about it. In short: Horton Guyford Stever (October 24, 1916 – April 9, 2010) was an American administrator, physicist, educator, and engineer. He was a director of the National Science Foundation (from February 1972 to August 1976).

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Horton Guyford Stever (October 24, 1916 – April 9, 2010) was an American administrator, physicist, educator, and engineer. He was a director of the National Science Foundation (from February 1972 to August 1976).

Biography Stever was raised in Corning, New York, principally by his maternal grandmother. He played football in high school. He graduated from Colgate University with an undergraduate degree in physics and then from California Institute of Technology in 1941 with a PhD in physics. He joined the staff of the radiation lab at MIT. In 1942 he began serving the military as a civilian scientific liaison officer based in London, England until the end of World War II. After D-Day he was sent to France several times to study German technology. He returned to MIT after the war, serving as associate dean of engineering there from 1956 to 1959 and then as a department head. In 1965 he became the fifth President of Carnegie Mellon University (and the first under that name, in 1967), a position he held until 1972. Stever House, a dorm on Carnegie Mellon's campus is named for him. During this period, he was also chairman of the aeronautics and space engineering board for the National Academy of Engineering advising NASA and other Federal agencies. He also served as the director of the National Science Foundation from 1972 until 1976. Between 1976 and 1977 he was President Gerald Ford's Science Advisor. He also served on the board of trustees of Science Service, now known as Society for Science & the Public, from 1982 to 2006. Stever received an LL.D. from Bates College in 1977. In 1997, he received the Vannevar Bush Award from the National Science Board. Stever died at his home in Gaithersburg, Maryland on April 9, 2010.

NACA Special Committee on Space Technology Guyford Stever was chairman or member of numerous advisory committees to the U.S. government. The NACA's Special Committee on Space Technology, also called the "Stever Committee," was among the better-known of these. It was a special steering committee that was formed with the mandate to coordinate various branches of the Federal government, private companies as well as universities within the United States with NACA's objectives and also harness their expertise in order to develop a space program.

Remarkably, Hendrik Wade Bode, the man who helped develop the robot weapons that brought down the Nazi V-1 flying bombs over London during WWII, was actually serving on the same committee and sitting at the same table as the chief engineer of the V-2, the other weapon that terrorised London: Wernher von Braun. As of their meeting on May 26, 1958, committee members, starting clockwise from the left of the adjacent picture, included:

NRC Committee on Human Exploration of Space In 1990 Stever chaired a Committee on Human Exploration of Space for the National Research Council. The committee released a report titled, Human Exploration of Space: A Review of NASA's 90-Day Study and Alternatives.

Honors Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1953. Elected to the American Philosophical Society, 2001.

References Fenton, Edwin (2000). Carnegie Mellon 1900-2000: A Centennial History. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University Press. ISBN 0-88748-323-2. Stever, H. Guyford (2002). In War and Peace: My Life in Science and Technology. Joseph Henry Press. ISBN 0-309-08411-3. H. Guyford Stever Oral History from IEEE via the Engineering and Technology History Wiki Announcement of his death

Footnotes

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Guyford Stever

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Guyford Stever claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, 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 Guyford Stever 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 Guyford Stever 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 Guyford Stever

In research: Guyford Stever appears in physics 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 Guyford Stever 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: Guyford Stever is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1916 births, 2010 deaths, 20th-century American physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Guyford Stever 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 Guyford Stever in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Guyford Stever in simple terms?

Why does Guyford Stever matter?

Because it connects several physics 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 Guyford Stever?

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 Guyford Stever.