astronomy

Jeremy Mould

Jeremy Mould 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 Jeremy Mould rather than just read about it. In short: Jeremy Richard Mould (born 31 July 1949) is an Australian astronomer currently at the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at Swinburne University of Technology. Mould was previously Director of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University and the American National Optical Astronomy Observatory.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Jeremy Richard Mould (born 31 July 1949) is an Australian astronomer currently at the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at Swinburne University of Technology. Mould was previously Director of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University and the American National Optical Astronomy Observatory. He is an Honorary Professorial Fellow, at the University of Melbourne.

Life Mould was born 31 July 1949 in Bristol, England, and emigrated to Australia in 1963. He graduated from the University of Melbourne, and Australian National University with a PhD. He was research fellow at Kitt Peak National Observatory, and professor at the California Institute of Technology.

Research Mould's work at Caltech during the early 1980s aimed to determine both the size and the age of the Universe by identifying and calibrating Standard Candles, that is, very bright stars whose Absolute Magnitude can be accurately measured when near the Earth, with more distant examples being identified by their colour, spectrum, or in the case of Cepheid Variables, the period of oscillation of their brightness. Other important work included the measurement of luminous evolved red giants in star clusters of the Magellanic Clouds, which he did in collaboration with Marc Aaronson. Also in collaboration with Marc Aaronson and John Huchra, Mould undertook measurements of the Hubble Constant that would eventually extend to the use of the Hubble Space Telescope and the WFPC2 camera to study Cepheid variables and use them as standard candles. Mould was on the science team for the WFPC2 camera that helped to restore the Hubble Space Telescope's image quality, correcting spherical aberration in the primary mirror. In collaboration with Gary DaCosta and Michael David Crawford, Mould prepared Hertzsprung Russell Diagrams of Large Magellanic Cloud and Small Magellanic Cloud Globular Clusters to determine their age, with the resulting Standard Candle being the brightest star in each cluster, with that star's absolute luminosity being derivable from its distance, with the B-R Color of the brightest cluster's star being used to determine the ages of more distant clusters by the colours of their brightest stars. The Magellanic Clouds are small galaxies that orbit the Milky Way Galaxy, with the distance from Earth to the Large Magellanic Cloud being 157,000 light years and that of the Small Magellanic Cloud being 200,000. During the Summer of 1983, Mould, daCosta and Crawford extended this work to a distance of 2.5 million light years by recording CCD spectrograms of Globular Clusters orbiting the Andromeda Galaxy at the Cassegrain Focus of the Five Meter Hale Telescope at Palomar Mountain Observatory, with the Standard Candle being determined by the expectation that the spectra of each cluster as a whole would be dominated by the spectrum of the brightest star in it.

Collaborators Gary da Costa, Professor of Astronomy, Australian National University Michael David Crawford, CEO, Dulcinea Technologies Corporation

Awards According to ISI Highly Cited he is among the highest cited astronomers in the world. Asteroid 18240 Mould is named in his honour. Mould was awarded the George Van Biesbroeck Prize in 1981 with Marc Aaronson, the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in Astronomy in 1984 with Marc Aaronson, and the Gruber Prize in Cosmology in 2009 with Wendy Freedman and Robert Kennicutt. He was elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020.

References

External links Astronomer's webpage Recent Presentations, NOAO

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Jeremy Mould

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Jeremy Mould 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 Jeremy Mould 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 Jeremy Mould 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 Jeremy Mould

In research: Jeremy Mould 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 Jeremy Mould 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: Jeremy Mould is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1949 births, 20th-century Australian astronomers, Academic staff of Swinburne University of Technology, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Jeremy Mould 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 Jeremy Mould in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Jeremy Mould in simple terms?

Why does Jeremy Mould 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 Jeremy Mould?

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 Jeremy Mould.