astronomy

Harvey Raymond Butcher

Harvey Raymond Butcher 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 Harvey Raymond Butcher rather than just read about it. In short: Harvey Raymond Butcher III is an astronomer who has made significant contributions in observational astronomy and instrumentation which have advanced understanding of the formation of stars and of the universe. He received a B.Sc. in Astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology in 1969, where he contributed to the development of advanced infrared spectrometry applied in the first survey of the sky at inf…

Key takeaways

Harvey Raymond Butcher belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
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Reproduce the core statement of Harvey Raymond Butcher from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Harvey Raymond Butcher III is an astronomer who has made significant contributions in observational astronomy and instrumentation which have advanced understanding of the formation of stars and of the universe. He received a B.Sc. in Astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology in 1969, where he contributed to the development of advanced infrared spectrometry applied in the first survey of the sky at infrared wavelengths (the Two Micron Sky Survey project).

Career Butcher received his PhD from the Australian National University in 1974 for research involving the construction of one of the first high resolution echelle spectrographs in astronomy and its application to elucidating the abundances of R- and S-process chemical elements in dwarf stars of widely differing ages and mean abundance levels. He continued his focus on developing instrumentation to solve observational problems in cosmology as the Bart J. Bok Fellow at the Steward Observatory of the University of Arizona from 1974 to 1976, where he characterized anomalous abundances in extreme halo stars and pioneered the application of the then new 2D (digital TV) vidicon systems and early CCD detectors for photometry of faint stars and galaxies. From 1976 to 1983, he held the position of Astronomer at the Kitt Peak National Observatory, Tucson, Arizona, where he spearheaded the technique of multi-aperture spectroscopy for observing very faint, high redshift galaxies, and was project scientist for several new observing instruments, including an early speckle spectrograph for obtaining spatially resolved spectra at resolutions approaching the diffraction limit. In 1978, along with Augustus Oemler, Jr., he discovered that rich galaxy clusters at large distances (z>0.2) have an excess of galaxies with blue colors when compared to similar nearby low redshift clusters. This is now known as the Butcher–Oemler Effect. In 1983, he accepted the position of Professor of Observational Astronomy at the University of Groningen and Director of the Kapteyn Observatory in the Netherlands. His research focused on galaxy evolution, taking advantage of both the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based systems, and of a stellar seismometer developed by his team based on a stabilized Fabry–Pérot interferometer. From 1991 until 2007 he served as Director of the Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy (ASTRON), the Netherlands' national astronomical organization. He oversaw Dutch contributions to innovative instrumentation for astronomy around the world and for the future James Webb Space Telescope. He worked on the Morphs collaboration studying the formation and morphologies of distant galaxies. Butcher supported the global Square Kilometre Array radio telescope project. He led the funding efforts and interdisciplinary development of LOFAR, for which he was awarded a knighthood in the Order of the Netherlands Lion. LOFAR is an innovative low-frequency radio telescope that has the potential to look back in time to the early epoch of the Universe just after the Big Bang when the first luminous objects were forming. Since September 2007, Professor Butcher has been the Director the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University, Canberra. Butcher became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007.

References

"New head appointed to lead astronomy at ANU" ANU media release, 18 June 2007. "Early universe to be seen in southern hemisphere", ABC News, 8 October 2007

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Harvey Raymond Butcher

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Harvey Raymond Butcher 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 Harvey Raymond Butcher 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 Harvey Raymond Butcher 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 Harvey Raymond Butcher

In research: Harvey Raymond Butcher 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 Harvey Raymond Butcher 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: Harvey Raymond Butcher is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1947 births, 20th-century American astronomers, 20th-century Australian astronomers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Harvey Raymond Butcher 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 Harvey Raymond Butcher in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Harvey Raymond Butcher 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.
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Frequently asked questions

What is Harvey Raymond Butcher in simple terms?

Why does Harvey Raymond Butcher 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 Harvey Raymond Butcher?

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 Harvey Raymond Butcher.