astronomy

John Addison Porter

John Addison Porter 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 John Addison Porter rather than just read about it. In short: John Addison Porter (March 15, 1822 – August 25, 1866) was an American professor of chemistry and physician. He is the namesake of the John Addison Porter Prize and was a founder of the Scroll and Key senior society of Yale University.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

John Addison Porter (March 15, 1822 – August 25, 1866) was an American professor of chemistry and physician. He is the namesake of the John Addison Porter Prize and was a founder of the Scroll and Key senior society of Yale University.

Academic life Porter was born in Catskill, New York. Porter graduated from Yale College in 1842. At Yale, he, along with William C. Kingsley, publisher of The New Englander, and eleven others, founded the senior or secret society Scroll and Key and incorporated the Kingsley Trust Association in 1841. He and moved to Philadelphia for further study. In 1844 he became a professor at Delaware College and remained there until 1847 when he moved to Germany to study at the University of Giessen under Justus von Liebig. In 1850 he returned to the United States and became a professor at Brown University. He left in 1852 to take the place of the retiring Professor John Pitkin Norton at Sheffield Scientific School (then Yale Scientific School). He was the Professor of Analytical and Agricultural Chemistry from 1852 to 1856, and Professor of Organic Chemistry from 1856 to 1864. He remained at Yale until he had to resign for health reasons in 1864, two years before his death in New Haven. In 1872 the Kingsley Trust endowed at Yale a prize in his honor to be given annually.

Personal life In 1855 he married Josephine Earl Sheffield, daughter of Joseph E. Sheffield, whose name was to eventually adorn the school where he was professor for 12 years. One of their sons was another John Addison Porter, who became the first person to hold the title "Secretary to the President", when he served in that capacity to William McKinley.

Works and achievements

Literary works First book of chemistry and allied sciences. 1857 Principles of chemistry. 1857, 1860, 1864, 1868 First book of science. 1858 Outlines of the first course of Yale agricultural lectures. 1860 Selections from the Kalevala, the Great Finnish Epic. 1868 Porter was the first person to translate any part of the Finnish national epic Kalevala into English using the German translation by Franz Anton Schiefner (the same version used by John Martin Crawford for his complete 1888 translation).

John Addison Porter Prize

The John Addison Porter Prize, established in 1872, is a prize at Yale University awarded annually to the best work of scholarship in any field "where it is possible, through original effort, to gather and relate facts or principles, or both, and to present the results in such a literary form as to make the product of general human interest."

References

External links Article from New Englander and Yale review. (Volume 27, Issue 103) On Porters early translation of parts of the Finnish epic, Kalevala

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John Addison Porter

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John Addison Porter 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 John Addison Porter 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 John Addison Porter 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 John Addison Porter

In research: John Addison Porter 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 John Addison Porter 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: John Addison Porter is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1822 births, 1866 deaths, 19th-century American chemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John Addison Porter 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 John Addison Porter in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is John Addison Porter in simple terms?

Why does John Addison Porter 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 John Addison Porter?

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 John Addison Porter.