astronomy

Margaret McArthur

Margaret McArthur 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 Margaret McArthur rather than just read about it. In short: Annie Margaret McArthur (1919–2002) was an Australian nutritionist, anthropologist and educator. She is remembered for conducting ground-breaking research from the late 1940s into the Indigenous and First Nations peoples of Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific region.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Annie Margaret McArthur (1919–2002) was an Australian nutritionist, anthropologist and educator. She is remembered for conducting ground-breaking research from the late 1940s into the Indigenous and First Nations peoples of Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific region. After assignments with the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization, in 1965 she was engaged as the first women lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Sydney, becoming a senior lecturer prior to her retirement in 1975.

Early life and education Born in Ararat in south-west Victoria on 6 December 1919, Annie Margaret McArthur studied biochemistry and bacteriology at the University of Melbourne leading to a B.Sc. (1941) and an M.Sc. (1942). She took a post-graduate course in nutrition at the Australian Institute of Anatomy (1946) and received a diploma in social anthropology from the University of London (1952). In 1962, she earned a Ph.D. in social anthropology from the Australian National University 1962 with a thesis titled The Kunimaipa: the Social Structure of a Papuan Society.

Career After receiving her master's degree, MacArthur spent three years during World War II as a researcher at the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation in Canberra where she helped develop containers to deliver food for troops in the tropics (1943–1945). Following training at the Australian Institute of Anatomy, in 1947 she joined the Nutrition Expedition to New Guinea conducted by the Commonwealth Department of Health. In 1948, she served as a nutritionist in the American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land to study the ecology of indigenous nomads in the far north-east of Australia's Northern Territory. In connection with her Ph.D., MacArthur undertook field research on the Kunimaipa people of Papua, communicating with them in their own language as she studied their nutritional habits. From 1958 to 1960, she worked as a social anthropology consultant to the government of Malaya on behalf of the World Health Organization. She then spent a year as nutrition consultant for Indonesia on an assignment from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. In 1965 she was engaged by the University of Sydney as the first women lecturer in its Department of Anthropology, becoming a senior lecturer prior to her retirement in 1975. In 1976, she married the retired Harvard anthropology professor Douglas Oliver and settled with him in Honolulu. She died there after a long illness on 12 May 2002.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Margaret McArthur

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Margaret McArthur 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 Margaret McArthur 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 Margaret McArthur 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 Margaret McArthur

In research: Margaret McArthur 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 Margaret McArthur 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: Margaret McArthur is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1919 births, 2002 deaths, Academic staff of the University of Sydney, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Margaret McArthur 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 Margaret McArthur in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Margaret McArthur in simple terms?

Why does Margaret McArthur 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 Margaret McArthur?

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 Margaret McArthur.