astronomy

Laura H. McLaughlin

Laura H. McLaughlin 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 Laura H. McLaughlin rather than just read about it. In short: Laura Elizabeth Hill McLaughlin (September 3, 1893 - February 22, 1991) was an American astronomer. As an astronomer of the Detroit Observatory for the University of Michigan, she conducted research work alongside her husband, fellow Detroit Observatory astronomer Dean B.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Laura Elizabeth Hill McLaughlin (September 3, 1893 - February 22, 1991) was an American astronomer. As an astronomer of the Detroit Observatory for the University of Michigan, she conducted research work alongside her husband, fellow Detroit Observatory astronomer Dean B. Mclaughlin.

Early life and education Raised within the Methodist Home for Children in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Laura Elizabeth Hill was the first of the Home ever to attend college. She received a B.A. in Astronomy in 1917 with her thesis, “Proper Motions of Stars from Micrometric Measures” from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She then remained at Northwestern to achieve an M.A. in Astronomy. To earn a doctoral degree, she went to the University of Michigan. By 1929, she had graduated with a Ph.D. in Astronomy with her dissertation, “A Micro-Photometric Study of the Spectrum of Beta Lyrae”. The dissertation was conducted under the direction of Detroit Observatory Director Ralph Hamilton Curtiss. This was the last of her major research publications.

Career Alongside her education, McLaughlin also worked in teaching and computer positions. Specifically, while pursuing her bachelor’s degree, she taught physics, mathematics, and German at three high schools in South Dakota and New Jersey. When pursuing a Master’s degree, she worked at the Dearborn Observatory as a computer. Her name and computational works appear in the publication “Stellar Parallaxes: Determined from Photographs made with the 18½-inch Refractor of the Detroit Observatory”. Prior to beginning Ph.D. work at the University of Michigan, she taught at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Personal life and legacy Mclaughlin married fellow Detroit Observatory astronomer Dean Benjamin McLaughlin in 1927. It was that year that Dean joined the U-M Faculty as an assistant professor of astronomy, coming from Swarthmore College where he spent three years as an instructor of mathematics and astronomy. While Mclaughlin assisted her husband in his astronomical research efforts at the Detroit Observatory, she did not publish any independent work after the creation of her dissertation. They had five children: one son (science-fiction writer Dean McLaughlin Jr.) and four daughters (Elizabeth Schick, Laura Alberta Dawson, Sarah McLaughlin, and Margaret Farley), and fourteen grandchildren. She remained an active participant in Methodist Church community activities until her death in 1991.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Laura H. McLaughlin

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Laura H. McLaughlin 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 Laura H. McLaughlin 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 Laura H. McLaughlin 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 Laura H. McLaughlin

In research: Laura H. McLaughlin 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 Laura H. McLaughlin 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: Laura H. McLaughlin is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1893 births, 1991 deaths, 20th-century American astronomers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Laura H. McLaughlin 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 Laura H. McLaughlin in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Laura H. McLaughlin in simple terms?

Why does Laura H. McLaughlin 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 Laura H. McLaughlin?

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 Laura H. McLaughlin.