earth science

Ian S. E. Carmichael

Ian S. E. Carmichael is a earth 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 Ian S. E. Carmichael rather than just read about it. In short: Ian Stuart Edward Carmichael (29 March 1930 –26 August 2011) was a British-born American igneous petrologist and volcanologist who established extensive quantitative methods for research in the thermodynamics of magma. Early life and education Carmichael was born on 29 March 1930 in London, and was raised in the town of Haywards Heath.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Ian Stuart Edward Carmichael (29 March 1930 –26 August 2011) was a British-born American igneous petrologist and volcanologist who established extensive quantitative methods for research in the thermodynamics of magma.

Early life and education Carmichael was born on 29 March 1930 in London, and was raised in the town of Haywards Heath. He was educated at Westminster School in London from age six until his senior year of high school, when he took an exchange trip to Connecticut; he stayed in the United States and enrolled in the Colorado School of Mines. He studied there for one semester before returning to England, where he was drafted into the British Army. He served in Egypt, Palestine, and Sudan for two years before winning a place at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He obtained Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in natural sciences (geology, specifically mineralogy and petrology) from the University of Cambridge in 1954, and his Ph.D. in 1958 from Imperial College London, where he wrote his thesis on Iceland's Thingmuli volcano.

Career and research After completing his thesis, Carmichael worked as a lecturer at Imperial College. In 1963, he began a six-month leave to work at the University of Chicago. He applied for more time at the conclusion of his term, but was rejected. Carmichael was invited to give a lecture at the University of California, Berkeley, which led to him starting a tenured position as an associate professor. He remained at Berkeley for the remainder of his career, and retired from the university in 2004. In 2004, Carmichael was the volume 1 editor of B. J. Wood's Landmark Papers series.

Awards and honours Carmichael was the recipient of numerous awards and recognitions including a special issue of Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology published in his honor in 2013, the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland's 1992 Mineralogical Society–Schlumberger Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship that same year, the Arthur L. Day Medal in 1991, and the Bowen Award in 1986. Carmichael was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1999, and an honorary fellow of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland in 2004. He was also a fellow of the Geological Society of America, the Mineralogical Society of America, and the American Geophysical Union. The mineral carmichaelite, as well as the Geological Society of America's Carmichael Student Research Grants program, are both named in his honor.

References

Further reading "A collection of papers honoring the career and legacy of Ian S. E. Carmichael" in Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ian S. E. Carmichael

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ian S. E. Carmichael claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth 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 Ian S. E. Carmichael 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 Ian S. E. Carmichael 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 Ian S. E. Carmichael

In research: Ian S. E. Carmichael appears in earth 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 Ian S. E. Carmichael 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: Ian S. E. Carmichael is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1930 births, 2011 deaths, 20th-century American geologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ian S. E. Carmichael 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.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Ian S. E. Carmichael” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Ian S. E. Carmichael in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Ian S. E. Carmichael in simple terms?

Why does Ian S. E. Carmichael matter?

Because it connects several earth 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 Ian S. E. Carmichael?

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 Ian S. E. Carmichael.