astronomy

John S. Paraskevopoulos

John S. Paraskevopoulos 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 S. Paraskevopoulos rather than just read about it. In short: John Stefanos Paraskevopoulos (Greek: Ιωάννης Στέφανος Παρασκευόπουλος; June 20, 1889 – March 15, 1951) also known as John Paras, was a Greek and South African astronomer. He spent most of his career in the Boyden Observatory, for the establishment of which he played a crucial role.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

John Stefanos Paraskevopoulos (Greek: Ιωάννης Στέφανος Παρασκευόπουλος; June 20, 1889 – March 15, 1951) also known as John Paras, was a Greek and South African astronomer. He spent most of his career in the Boyden Observatory, for the establishment of which he played a crucial role. He was born in Piraeus, Kingdom of Greece and graduated from the University of Athens, where he obtained his PhD in physics in 1910, under the supervision of Timoleon A. Argyropoulos. His thesis was entitled "Variability in absorption spectra". After his graduation he spent several years as laboratory assistant in Physics and Chemistry at the University of Athens, with King George II attending laboratory courses under him at that time. His scientific career was interrupted by nine years of military service in the Greek army during the Balkan Wars and World War I. This prevented him proceeding abroad with a scholarship he had won in 1912. He ended his military career with the rank of First Lieutenant and received multiple war medals including thirteen bars for battles in which he had fought. During part of his military service he was an instructor in navigation at the National Observatory of Athens. He worked as an assistant of Prof. Demetrios Eginitis at the National Observatory of Athens, and in 1919, he went to the US with a two-year fellowship, spending part of that time working at Yerkes Observatory. There he met and married Dorothy W. Block. He also worked for several months at the Mount Wilson Observatory and at the United States Weather Bureau in Washington D.C. In 1921, he returned to Athens where he became head of the astronomy department of the National Observatory of Athens with a goal to build a large telescope in Greece. However, due to the Greco-Turkish War during that period and the political instability that followed it soon became evident that the large telescope for the observatory would not materialise. In September 1923, Dr Paras accepted an offer from Dr Harlow Shapley, to become the Superintendent of the Harvard Observatory's Southern Station. He left this post due to a lack of funding and went to Arequipa, Peru to work at Boyden Station, a branch of Harvard Observatory, with a view to finding a more suitable location for it. The decision was made to move Boyden Station to the Union of South Africa due to better weather conditions, and Paraskevopoulos served there as director of Boyden Observatory in South Africa from 1927 to 1951, the year of his death. While in South Africa he was an extramural Professor of Astronomy at the University of the Orange Free State and he was given an honorary degree of Master of Arts from Harvard University. In 1950, he was awarded the medal of Commander of Order of the Phoenix, one of the greatest honours awarded by Greece. John Paraskevopoulos was a member of multiple scientific societies, including the Royal Astronomical Society, the American Astronomical Society, the South African Association for the Advancement of Science and the Societe Astronomique de France. He co-discovered a couple of comets, including C/1941 B2 (de Kock–Paraskevopoulos), which became visible with naked eye. The crater Paraskevopoulos on the Moon and the asteroid 5298 Paraskevopoulos are named after him.

References

External links Dr. PARASKEVOPOULOS, John Stefanos

Obituaries JRASC 45 (1951) 126 (one paragraph) MNRAS 112 (1952) 277 Nature 167 (1951) 753 Obs 71 (1951) 88 (one line) PASP 63 (1951) 212 (one paragraph) Sky and Telescope 10 (1951) 169

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John S. Paraskevopoulos

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John S. Paraskevopoulos 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 S. Paraskevopoulos 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 S. Paraskevopoulos 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 S. Paraskevopoulos

In research: John S. Paraskevopoulos 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 S. Paraskevopoulos 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 S. Paraskevopoulos is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1889 births, 1961 deaths, 20th-century Greek astronomers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John S. Paraskevopoulos 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 S. Paraskevopoulos in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is John S. Paraskevopoulos in simple terms?

Why does John S. Paraskevopoulos 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 S. Paraskevopoulos?

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 S. Paraskevopoulos.