astronomy

John E. Mellish

John E. Mellish 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 E. Mellish rather than just read about it. In short: John Edward Mellish (12 January 1886 – 13 July 1970, Medford, Oregon) was an American amateur astronomer and telescope builder. Biography Mellish was born in Wisconsin, the son of Arthur Mellish (1862–1928) and Judith Sedora Stimson Mellish (1864–1954).

Key takeaways

John E. Mellish 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 E. Mellish to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of John E. Mellish from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

John Edward Mellish (12 January 1886 – 13 July 1970, Medford, Oregon) was an American amateur astronomer and telescope builder.

Biography Mellish was born in Wisconsin, the son of Arthur Mellish (1862–1928) and Judith Sedora Stimson Mellish (1864–1954). Arthur was the son of an English clergyman who moved to the US. He later abandoned the family and worked as a railway crossing guard. Mellish grew up outside of Madison, Wisconsin in Cottage Grove. He taught himself and helped in farming. He completed the normal school curriculum of four years in just two. At 14 he bought a small Bardou refractor and then decided to build a larger telescope based on instructions in the Scientific American by George Willis Ritchey. By age 24 he was credited with discovering or co-discovering two comets: C/1907 G1 (Grigg–Mellish) and C/1907 T1 (Mellish) using home built telescopes, and received astronomical medals from both the United States and Mexico as a result. He later discovered another three comets: C/1915 C1 (Mellish), C/1915 R1 (Mellish), and C/1917 F1 (Mellish). Mellish wrote to Popular Mechanics about his telescope and wrote that he was open to help anyone else build one. This resulted in a flood of correspondence. By 1908, he had handled 300 letters. He also established a correspondence with A. R. Hassard of Toronto. In November 1915 he announced to have observed craters on Mars, and being the second person to do so after E. E. Barnard. Both claims are disputed to this day, but he is still credited to be the first human to recognize craters on Mars using the great 40-inch Yerkes refractor.

A crater on Mars (Mellish) was named in his honor. In 1931, Mellish confessed to committing incest with his 15-year-old daughter. Astronomers advocated that he be spared jail time because of his value to science, and it was proposed that he be sterilized. Mellish was held in the Kane County Jail from September 1931 to April 1933, when he was paroled, and he moved to California. His wife divorced him in May 1933 and was given custody of their eight children. After living in Escondido, California from 1933 to 1936, Mellish relocated to a ranch at Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. However he returned to Escondido, where he and his son were arrested in 1938 on charges involving two juvenile girls. Mellish died in Medford, Oregon, in 1970.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John E. Mellish

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John E. Mellish 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 E. Mellish 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 E. Mellish 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 E. Mellish

In research: John E. Mellish 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 E. Mellish 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 E. Mellish is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1886 births, 1970 deaths, 20th-century American people, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John E. Mellish 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 E. Mellish in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is John E. Mellish in simple terms?

John Edward Mellish (12 January 1886 – 13 July 1970, Medford, Oregon) was an American amateur astronomer and telescope builder. Biography Mellish was born in Wisconsin, the son of Arthur Mellish (1862–1928) and Judith Sedora Stimson Mellish (1864–1954).

Why does John E. Mellish 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 E. Mellish?

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 E. Mellish.