astronomy

Maria Smith-Falkner

Maria Smith-Falkner 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 Maria Smith-Falkner rather than just read about it. In short: Maria Natanovna Smith-Falkner (Russian: Мария Натановна Смит-Фалькнер; 16 February [O.S. 4 February] 1878, Taganrog – 7 March 1968, Moscow) was a Soviet economist, statistician and a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union from 1939 onward. She was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, having joined the Mensheviks in 1918.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Maria Natanovna Smith-Falkner (Russian: Мария Натановна Смит-Фалькнер; 16 February [O.S. 4 February] 1878, Taganrog – 7 March 1968, Moscow) was a Soviet economist, statistician and a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union from 1939 onward. She was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, having joined the Mensheviks in 1918.

Biography She was born into the family of a Jewish merchant. In 1901 she went to London to study at the London School of Economics, returning to Russia in 1905. She then got involved with the 1905 revolution. She joined the Menshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and was arrested four times. This included an occasion in December 1905, when she organised an illegal conference in Moscow of the trade union of textile workers. She was arrested with the entire delegation of the Saint Petersburg Soviet.

1918-19 – chief of the department of economic research at VSNH (All-Russian Council of National Economy). Member of the Coil Section of the VSNH. 1919 – served in the Red Army in the Southern Front in the course of the Russian Civil War. Since 1921 – taught at universities and colleges in Moscow (the Moscow State University, the Georgi Plekhanov Moscow Institute of National Economy, the Oil Institute and others). 1925 – earned her doctorate in economics. 1921-24 – professor at the faculty of social studies of Moscow State University 1924-30 – professor at Moscow Institute of National Economy. 1925-34 – full member scholar at the Communist Academy of the Central Executive Committee (Moscow). 1926-30 – member of Board of the Central Statistical Administration of the USSR. 1930-34 – professor at the International Lenin School. 1934-36 – professor at the Economic Research Institute attached to the Gosplan (the State Planning Committee). 1937 – editor of the State Socio-Economic Publishing House. 1938-41 – professor at Moscow Economic Planning Institute. 1941-44 – senior staff scientist at the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. 1944-46 – senior staff scientist at the Institute of Foreign Trade. 1948-55 – team manager at the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union.

Scientific interests Smith-Falkner's research was focused on the issues of political economy of capitalism and socialism. Her scientific interests were: economics of capitalism and socialism, statistics theory, the status of the working class in the Western countries, etc. She conducted her research at the Institute of Economic Studies attached to the Gosplan (the State Planning Committee) and the Economic Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. Maria Smith-Falkner edited the works by David Ricardo and Sir William Petty to be published in the Soviet Union.

Major works Prodovolstvennyi vopros v Anglii (The Food Question in England) St. Petersburg, 1917, The book was marked by Vladimir Lenin in the Book Chroncle (Knizhnaya letopis) journal Klassovaia borba v sovremennoi Anglii (Class Struggle in Modern England), Moscow, 1922 Dinamika krizisov i polozhenie proletariata (The Moving Sources and Trends of Crises and the Status of Proletariat), Moscow, 1927 Teoriia i praktika sovetskoi statistiki (The Theory and Practice of the Soviet Statistics) (Collected articles), Moscow, 1930 Polozhenie rabochego klassa kapitalisticheskikh stran v svete teorii obnishchaniia Karla Marksa (The Status of the Working Class in the Capitalist Countries in the Light of Karl Marx's Impoverishment Theory) Moscow, 1933 Polozhenie rabochego klassa v SShA, Anglii i Frantsii posle vtoroi mirovoi voiny (The Status of the Working Class in the USA, Great Britain and France after the WWII) Moscow, 1953 Ocherki istorii burzhuaznoi politicheskoi ekonomii (The Studies on the History of the Bourgeois Political Economy. Mid 19th – Mid 20th century) Moscow, 1961

Awards and honors Order of the Red Banner of Labour (10 June 1945) Order of the Badge of Honour (1953) Order of Lenin (1968)

References

Encyclopaedia of Taganrog, 2nd edition, Taganrog, 2003.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Maria Smith-Falkner

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Maria Smith-Falkner 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 Maria Smith-Falkner 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 Maria Smith-Falkner 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 Maria Smith-Falkner

In research: Maria Smith-Falkner 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 Maria Smith-Falkner 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: Maria Smith-Falkner is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1878 births, 1968 deaths, 20th-century Russian economists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Maria Smith-Falkner 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 Maria Smith-Falkner in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Maria Smith-Falkner in simple terms?

Why does Maria Smith-Falkner 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 Maria Smith-Falkner?

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 Maria Smith-Falkner.