Lyman Page

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Lyman Alexander Page, Jr. (born September 24, 1957) is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics at Princeton University. He is an expert in observational cosmology and one of the original co-investigators for the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) project that made precise observations of the electromagnetic radiation from the Big Bang, known as cosmic microwave background radiation.

Early life and education Page was born in San Francisco in 1957, and moved through Virginia and New Hampshire with his parents, eventually settling in Maine. His father was a pediatrician and his mother an artist. He has a younger brother and sister. He became interested in physics at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, where he did his undergraduate studies, after a course taught by Elroy O. LaCasce. He worked on the Mach’s principle for a course project and was drawn to cosmology. Page graduated with a BA in Physics in 1978. Page then became a research technician for 15 months at the Bartol Research Foundation (now Bartol Research Institute), being stationed at the McMurdo Station in the Antarctica and operating a cosmic ray station. Returning to the United States, he bought and rebuilt a sailboat, and started sailing around the East Coast and the Caribbean for 2.5 years. He intermittently worked onshore in carpentry, rigging and other kinds of boat service, until he survived a storm near Venezuela, after which he decided to pursue graduate studies. Rainer Weiss from the Department of Physics of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) agreed to let Page work in his lab, albeit without pay, so Page worked as carpenter in the day and at Weiss's lab at night. Eventually in 1983, Page began his PhD study at the MIT under the supervision of Stephan S. Meyer, completing 6 years later.

Scientific career After his PhD, Page stayed at MIT as a postdoctoral researcher, and joined the Department of Physics of Princeton University in 1990, first as an instructor, and then promoted to assistant professor 1 year later and associate professor in 1995. He became a full professor in 1998. Since 2005, he has been successively appointed to different endowed professorships, including the Henry DeWolf Smyth Professor of Physics (2005-2014), the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Chair of Physics (2014-2015) and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics (since 2015). Between 2011 and 2017, Page was the chair, or Head, of the Department of Physics of Princeton University. Page was the founding director of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope project from 2004 to 2014. Currently, he is a member of the executive board of the Simons Observatory, an Advisor for Gravity and the Extreme Universe at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and serves on the board of directors of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement.

Research Page's research centers around Cosmic microwave background (CMB), which is the electromagnetic radiation from the Big Bang. In 1991, Page, together with David Todd Wilkinson, Norman Jarosik and Edward J. Wollack, conceived of a satellite designed to specifically detect CMB. They eventually partnered with Johns Hopkins University, University of California, Los Angeles, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and other institutions, and the effort became the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) project, which was named in honor of Wilkinson. The satellite was launched in 2001. Since CMB comes from a time when the universe began, WMAP enables the study of the universe's early history, including its expansion, as well as its composition.

Personal life Page met his wife, Elizabeth Olson, during his PhD years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Olson is a biophysics professor at Columbia University. They have three boys.

Awards Marc Aaronson Memorial Lectureship (2004) Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2004) Member of the National Academy of Sciences (2006) Shaw Prize in Astronomy (2010) Fellow of the American Physical Society (2013) Gruber Prize in Cosmology (2015) Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2018) (with Charles L. Bennett, Gary Hinshaw, Norman Jarosik, David Spergel and the WMAP Science Team) Marcel Grossman Award, International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics (2018)

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lyman Page

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lyman Page 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 Lyman Page 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 Lyman Page 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 Lyman Page

In research: Lyman Page 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 Lyman Page 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: Lyman Page is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1957 births, American astronomers, Bowdoin College alumni, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lyman Page 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.

How to study Lyman Page in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Lyman Page in simple terms?

Lyman Alexander Page, Jr. (born September 24, 1957) is the James S.

Why does Lyman Page 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 Lyman Page?

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 Lyman Page.