astronomy

Linda M. French

Linda M. French 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 Linda M. French rather than just read about it. In short: Linda May French (March 23, 1951 – November 9, 2025) was an American astronomer. She specialized in the physical properties of asteroids and comets, including their shapes and surfaces.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Linda May French (March 23, 1951 – November 9, 2025) was an American astronomer. She specialized in the physical properties of asteroids and comets, including their shapes and surfaces. She was also interested in astronomy education and in the history of astronomy, particularly focusing on the life of the 18th-century deaf British astronomer John Goodricke. She was a professor emerita of physics at Illinois Wesleyan University and helped develop the Arecibo message in 1974.

Education and career French was originally from Hagerstown, Indiana, and first made plans for becoming an astronomer at age five, after being given a children's book on astronomy. But as a student at Indiana University, she went through English and education majors before returning to astronomy after taking a junior-year general education course in the subject. She graduated from Indiana University in 1973, with an A.B. in astronomy and a minor in physics. She then went to Cornell University for graduate study in astronomy, where she worked as a teaching assistant for Carl Sagan, earned a master's degree in 1977, and completed her Ph.D. in 1980. After a one-year visiting assistant professorship at Bates College, she was a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1982 to 1988, a researcher at the Air Force Geophysics Laboratory at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts from 1988 to 1989, and a pre-secondary science teacher at The Park School in Brookline, Massachusetts from 1989 to 1992, before returning to academia as an associate professor of physics at Wheelock College in Boston in 1992. She moved to Illinois Wesleyan University in 2002, and was promoted to full professor in 2008. She was a program director at the National Science Foundation for a three-year term beginning circa 2017. She died in 2025 in Exeter, New Hampshire, aged 74.

Recognition Asteroid 3506 French was named after French in 1988. In 2016, Illinois Wesleyan University gave her their highest teaching award, the Kemp Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence. French was named a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020.

References

External links Home page Dr. Linda French: Don’t limit yourself, interview by Kelsi Singer, September 2015, Women in Planetary Science

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Linda M. French

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Linda M. French 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 Linda M. French 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 Linda M. French 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 Linda M. French

In research: Linda M. French 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 Linda M. French 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: Linda M. French is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American astronomers, American women astronomers, Cornell University alumni, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Linda M. French 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 Linda M. French in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Linda M. French in simple terms?

Linda May French (March 23, 1951 – November 9, 2025) was an American astronomer. She specialized in the physical properties of asteroids and comets, including their shapes and surfaces.

Why does Linda M. French 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 Linda M. French?

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 Linda M. French.