astronomy

Hallowell Davis

Hallowell Davis 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 Hallowell Davis rather than just read about it. In short: Hallowell Davis (August 31, 1896 – August 22, 1992) was an American physiologist, otolaryngologist and researcher who did pioneering work on the physiology of hearing and the inner ear. He served as director of research at the Central Institute for the Deaf in St.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Hallowell Davis (August 31, 1896 – August 22, 1992) was an American physiologist, otolaryngologist and researcher who did pioneering work on the physiology of hearing and the inner ear. He served as director of research at the Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis, Missouri.

Early life Hallowell Davis was born on August 31, 1896, in New York City, the son of attorney Horace A. Davis, and Anna Norwood (née Hallowell) Davis. His great-grandfather was Massachusetts Governor John Davis, and his grandfather was Civil War Officer Norwood Penrose Hallowell. He graduated from Harvard College in 1918, where he was the class orator at graduation. He earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1922 and then spent a year at the University of Cambridge where he was trained in electrophysiology in the laboratory of Edgar Adrian. In 1925, Harvard named Davis to serve as an official tutor and instructor in pre-medical sciences, as a means of helping prepare students intending to advance to Harvard and other medical schools to "get the soundest general foundation possible for their medical education". After the year in England, he returned to teach at Harvard and became an assistant professor at Harvard College in 1927 and the school's first tutor in biochemical sciences, later becoming the director of the school's Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1929.

Audiology pioneer During the 1930s, Davis participated in the development of electroencephalography and was the first person in the United States to have his brain waves scanned by an EEG device. He focused on the physiology of the inner ear, investigating how neurological impulses are transmitted to the brain via the cochlear nerve. His studies led to the development of electrical-response audiometry, which allowed diagnosis of hearing difficulties in infants. Robert Galambos credited Davis with coining the word "audiology" in the 1940s, with Davis saying the then-prevalent term "auricular training" sounded like a method of teaching people how to wiggle their ears. Davis moved to the Central Institute for the Deaf, where some of his early work was for the Veterans Administration in the development of improved hearing aids for soldiers who had experienced hearing loss. Combining aspects and research from the fields of behaviorism, electroacoustic engineering and electrophysiology, Davis was able to advance the study of the field, which could be seen in his 1947 work Hearing and Deafness: A Guide for the Layman, which he co-edited with S. Richard Silverman. In 1948, he was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences. He was also a professor of physiology at the Washington University School of Medicine, where he lectured on hearing and speech. Research by Davis presented to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1952 showed that hair cells in the inner ear play a pivotal role in transforming the mechanical stimulus of sound into electrical impulses to be sent to and processed by the brain. During the 1960s, Davis served on the National Research Council's Committee on the Sonic Boom and Supersonic Transport, where he argued that the noise would result in hearing irritation to the public, in addition to being an economic risk. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1965. Davis was awarded the Acoustical Society of America Gold Medal in 1965 and the National Medal of Science in 1975.

Personal life He married the former Pauline Allen in 1923 at a refugee camp near Istanbul, where they were treating those with typhus, smallpox and other diseases. She served as his research partner until her death in 1942. He married Florence Eaton in 1944 and then Nancy Gilson in 1983, three years after the death of his second wife. Davis was a resident of University City, Missouri. He died at age 95 on August 22, 1992, at the Bethesda Dalworth Home in St. Louis. He was survived by his third wife, Nancy, as well as a daughter, two sons, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. He donated his inner ear for scientific research.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hallowell Davis

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hallowell Davis 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 Hallowell Davis 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 Hallowell Davis 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 Hallowell Davis

In research: Hallowell Davis 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 Hallowell Davis 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: Hallowell Davis is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1896 births, 1992 deaths, 20th-century American surgeons, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hallowell Davis 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 Hallowell Davis in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Hallowell Davis in simple terms?

Why does Hallowell Davis 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 Hallowell Davis?

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 Hallowell Davis.