astronomy

Hobart Muir Smith

Hobart Muir Smith 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 Hobart Muir Smith rather than just read about it. In short: Hobart Muir Smith, born Frederick William Stouffer (September 26, 1912 – March 4, 2013), was an American herpetologist. He is credited with describing more than 100 new species of American reptiles and amphibians.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Hobart Muir Smith, born Frederick William Stouffer (September 26, 1912 – March 4, 2013), was an American herpetologist. He is credited with describing more than 100 new species of American reptiles and amphibians. In addition, he has been honored by having at least six species named after him, including the southwestern blackhead snake (Tantilla hobartsmithi), Smith's earth snake (Uropeltis grandis), Smith's arboreal alligator lizard (Abronia smithi), Hobart's anadia (Anadia hobarti), Hobart Smith's anole (Anolis hobartsmithi), and Smith's rose-bellied lizard (Sceloporus smithi). At 100 years of age, Smith continued to be an active and productive herpetologist. Although he published on a wide range of herpetological subjects, his main focus throughout his career was on the amphibians and reptiles of Mexico, including taxonomy, bibliographies, and history. Having published more than 1,600 manuscripts, he surpassed all contemporaries and remains the most published herpetologist of all time.

Early life and education Smith was born in Stanwood, Iowa on September 26, 1912. Smith attained his Bachelor of Science in 1932 from Kansas State University, under Howard K. Gloyd, and attained his masters (in 1933) and doctorate (in 1936) at the University of Kansas under Dr. Edward Harrison Taylor, where his thesis was a revision of the lizard genus Sceloporus. He also participated in several specimen collecting trips to Mexico.

Career In 1936-37 Smith was awarded a National Research Council Fellowship at the University of Michigan, where he wrote The Mexican and Central American Lizards of the Genus Sceloporus (1939). In 1937 he worked for both the Chicago Academy of Sciences and the Field Museum of Natural History. He was given a fellowship by the Smithsonian Institution to collect specimens in Mexico, and collected over 20,000. From 1941 until 1945 he was a zoology professor at the University of Rochester, in New York. In 1945 he returned to the University of Kansas as an associate professor and wrote the Handbook of Lizards, Lizards of the US and of Canada. In 1946 he moved to Texas and became an associate professor of wildlife management at Texas A&M University and wrote Checklist and key to snakes of Mexico and Checklist and key to amphibians of Mexico with Taylor. From 1947 until 1968 he was a professor of zoology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where correspondence with Stephen Smith can be found in the University Archives. He retired in 1968 and moved to Boulder, Colorado, where he became a professor of biology at the University of Colorado. In 1972 he became chairman of, what is now, the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. In 1983 he retired, becoming a professor emeritus and continued his personal research with over 1,600 publications, including 29 books.

Personal life Born Frederick William Stouffer in 1912, he was adopted in 1916 by Charles and Frances Smith, farmers. In 1938 he married Rozella Pearl Beverly Blood (who became Rozella Pearl Beverly Blood Smith, 1911–1987), who helped him publish his extensive collection of herpetological notes. In 1942 he named a species of lizard in honor of her, Celestus rozellae. A subspecies of snake, Tantillita lintoni rozellae, is also named in honor of her.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hobart Muir Smith

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hobart Muir Smith 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 Hobart Muir Smith 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 Hobart Muir Smith 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 Hobart Muir Smith

In research: Hobart Muir Smith 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 Hobart Muir Smith 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: Hobart Muir Smith is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1912 births, 2013 deaths, American herpetologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hobart Muir Smith 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 Hobart Muir Smith in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Hobart Muir Smith in simple terms?

Why does Hobart Muir Smith 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 Hobart Muir Smith?

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 Hobart Muir Smith.