science

Holger Nielsen

Holger Nielsen is a science 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 Holger Nielsen rather than just read about it. In short: Holger Louis Nielsen (18 December 1866 – 26 January 1955) was a Danish fencer, sport shooter, and athlete. He competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Holger Louis Nielsen (18 December 1866 – 26 January 1955) was a Danish fencer, sport shooter, and athlete. He competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. He is probably best known for drawing up the first set of rules for the game of handball.

Fencing Nielsen's main sport was fencing, in which he competed in the sabre. At Athens, Nielsen placed third in the sabre event. He split his matches in the five-man, round-robin tournament. Nielsen defeated Adolf Schmal and Georgios Iatridis, but lost to Telemachos Karakalos and Ioannis Georgiadis. This 2–2 record put Nielsen in third place.

Firearms competitions In the military rifle event, Nielsen quit the competition after the first day. He had shot 20 times out of the full 40, though his score was unknown. Nielsen placed fifth in the military pistol event. He won a bronze medal in the rapid fire pistol, coming in last of the three shooters that finished the competition. His best result of the Games was a surprise silver medal in the free pistol competition; his score of 285 was far behind Sumner Paine's 442 but was sufficient to defeat the other three shooters in the event. His scores for each of the five strings of 6 shots were 12, 85, 62, 24, and 100.

Discus Nielsen also competed in the discus throw. He did not place among the top four in the event, though records are unclear as to which place between fifth and last (ninth) he received.

Football Together with fellow Københavns Roklub athlete Eugen Schmidt, Nielsen also participated in the unofficial football event in which a Danish XI faced a Greek team as a "demonstration sport", and it was the Danes who came-out as the winners by either 9–0 or 15–0.

Other activities

Nielsen is also credited with developing an early set of rules for handball in 1898, and with developing a form of external cardiopulmonary resuscitation called the Holger Nielsen method in 1932. The National Research Council gave support to this method in 1951, however, it was superseded by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in recommendations of 1958. (Artificial Respiration, the history of an idea. A B Baker Med Hist. 1971 15(4): 336-351)

References

External links Holger Nielsen at World Athletics Holger Nielsen at Olympics.com Holger Nielsen at Olympedia

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Holger Nielsen

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

In research: Holger Nielsen appears in science 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 Holger Nielsen 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: Holger Nielsen is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1866 births, 1955 deaths, 19th-century Danish sportspeople, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Holger Nielsen 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 Holger Nielsen in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Holger Nielsen in simple terms?

Holger Louis Nielsen (18 December 1866 – 26 January 1955) was a Danish fencer, sport shooter, and athlete. He competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens.

Why does Holger Nielsen matter?

Because it connects several science 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 Holger Nielsen?

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 Holger Nielsen.