physics

Marjorie Corcoran

Marjorie Corcoran is a physics 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 Marjorie Corcoran rather than just read about it. In short: Marjorie Diane Blasius Corcoran (July 21, 1950 – February 3, 2017) was an American particle physicist and professor at Rice University. Biography Born as Marjorie Blasius, she grew up in Beavercreek, Ohio, graduating from Beavercreek High School as co-valedictorian in 1968.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Marjorie Diane Blasius Corcoran (July 21, 1950 – February 3, 2017) was an American particle physicist and professor at Rice University.

Biography Born as Marjorie Blasius, she grew up in Beavercreek, Ohio, graduating from Beavercreek High School as co-valedictorian in 1968. To begin her higher education, in 1972 she completed her bachelor's degree at the University of Dayton, graduating summa cum laude. That same year she married Christopher Corcoran, taking his surname. As a graduate student at Indiana University Bloomington, she began doing high-energy physics research at Fermilab. Her 1977 doctoral dissertation, Measurement of the polarization parameter in proton-proton elastic scattering for beam momenta ranging from 20 GeV/c to 200 GeV/c, was supervised by Homer Neal. After earning her Ph.D. in 1977, Corcoran continued studies for 2 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She joined the Rice University faculty in 1980, where she would continue to teach for 37 years. At Rice, she was the first speaker of the Rice Faculty Senate upon its formation in 2005. She died while bicycling to work on February 3, 2017, in Houston, from a collision with a METRORail train.

Contributions As a professor at Rice, Corcoran continued her work at Fermilab as part of several large collaborative physics projects including the D0 experiment, KTeV collaboration, and the muon-to-electron-conversion experiment. She also worked in physics outreach activities that included founding the Houston QuarkNet Program for high school physics students and teachers. She helped to found the Women in Physics Group at Rice, sending undergraduates to physics conferences, and otherwise encouraging other women to participate in physics.

Awards and honors In 1992, the American Physical Society (APS) named her as a fellow "for contributions to experiments studying spin asymmetries in hadronic collision". She was also awarded the Distinguished Scientist Award from the University of Wisconsin physics department in 2008. In 2015, the APS listed her as their January 2015 Woman of the Month.

References

External links Marjorie Corcoran on INSPIRE-HEP

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Marjorie Corcoran

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Marjorie Corcoran claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, 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 Marjorie Corcoran 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 Marjorie Corcoran 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 Marjorie Corcoran

In research: Marjorie Corcoran appears in physics 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 Marjorie Corcoran 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: Marjorie Corcoran is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1950 births, 2017 deaths, 21st-century American women, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Marjorie Corcoran 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 Marjorie Corcoran in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Marjorie Corcoran in simple terms?

Marjorie Diane Blasius Corcoran (July 21, 1950 – February 3, 2017) was an American particle physicist and professor at Rice University. Biography Born as Marjorie Blasius, she grew up in Beavercreek, Ohio, graduating from Beavercreek High School as co-valedictorian in 1968.

Why does Marjorie Corcoran matter?

Because it connects several physics 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 Marjorie Corcoran?

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 Marjorie Corcoran.