engineering

Martha MacKenzie

Martha MacKenzie is a engineering 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 Martha MacKenzie rather than just read about it. In short: Martha MacKenzie (also Stewart and Holden) is a fictional character from the Australian Channel Seven soap opera Home and Away, played by Jodi Gordon. Martha made her first on-screen appearance on 8 September 1988.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Martha MacKenzie (also Stewart and Holden) is a fictional character from the Australian Channel Seven soap opera Home and Away, played by Jodi Gordon. Martha made her first on-screen appearance on 8 September 1988. She was originally played by Burcin Kapkin. In 2005, the character returned to Home and Away, played by Jodi Gordon. Gordon was a model and she took acting lessons before auditioning for the role. Gordon won a Logie Award for "Most Popular New Female Talent" in 2006 and she earned several more award nominations for her portrayal of Martha. Martha returned on screen on 30 March 2005. Martha was described as being friendly, feisty and fun loving. Martha's appearance has evolved throughout her time in the show: she was initially a tomboy who loved sport, but she later became a stylish woman. Upon her return in March 2005, Martha's storylines saw her surviving a helicopter crash, having an abortion and a miscarriage, battling alcoholism, being diagnosed with breast cancer and becoming a widow after her husband was shot. In a controversial storyline Martha worked as a pole dancer; the scenes were criticised by the broadcasting regulator for their content. Whilst playing Martha, Gordon was at the center of a number of personal scandals, which put her future in the show in doubt. In January 2010, it was announced that Gordon was leaving the show and Martha departed on 9 June 2010.

Casting The character was created as part of Roo Stewart's (Justine Clarke) teenage pregnancy storyline. The character's on-screen birth aired on 8 September 1988. The writers added some jeopardy to the storyline as Roo goes into labour prematurely and there are medical complications, leaving both Roo and the baby in danger. Clarke filmed around fifteen scenes of her character in labour, before she gives birth to a baby girl. The role of Martha was originally played by Burcin Kapkin, who was one-month old when she was cast. In 2005, the character was reintroduced to the show and the part was recast to model Jodi Gordon. Gordon took acting lessons before successfully auditioning for the role. Gordon later revealed that she was initially nervous about auditioning due to her lack of acting experience. However, producers gave her two months prior to filming so she could learn her scripts and gain more acting skills. Gordon said: "I'd never done any acting. So I did a few little acting course things and then I kind of fluked the part".

During March 2007, Gordon was written out of the show indefinitely after her partner, Chris Burkhardt, died from cancer. The Home and Away writers had previously rewritten several scripts to allow Gordon to spend as much time as possible with Burkhardt. In 2009, Gordon became the center of media attention due to a series of scandals in her private life. The serial's home network Channel Seven decided to support Gordon through the ordeals. The scandals cast doubt over whether Gordon would be staying with the serial and it was reported that she wanted to leave Australia for other roles. However, it was later confirmed she would be staying with the show and a spokesperson said, "Jodi is looking forward, not backward, and is hard at work on the set of Home and Away". Gordon was backed by her fellow cast members and fans of her character, who voiced their support for her. At the time Gordon was signed to appear in the serial for another two years after she had signed to a three-year contract.

Character development

Characterisation Channel Seven described Martha as being "Friendly, straight down the line, and with a great enthusiasm for life", and Jetstar magazine called Martha "a feisty addition to the Stewart family". Gordon described Martha's persona stating: "Martha's pretty feisty all of the time but in the sense of always fighting for what's right and keeping up a strong perspective on where I want to go, things like that." Gordon says that she feels Martha always makes bad choices when it comes to her love life, because she never knows what she wants. Gordon said that Martha is "messed up" but with a "warm side" to her persona, and that overall Martha is "fun loving, easy going girl-next-door" type character. Of her portrayal, Gordon says that she enjoys the challenge of playing Martha because she gets to shout a lot when showing her crazy and fun side. Gordon later said that "There will always be a little bit of trouble attached to Martha. She will always be a little bit mischievous". On the character's appearance, RTÉ said "Martha was a self-confessed tomboy, loving sport and anything physical. Now she has grown into a stylish woman with great taste in clothes which range from shorts and strappy tops to gorgeous summer dresses."

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Martha MacKenzie: Martha pole dancing, a notable storyline and a scene that caused outrage in Australia for its G rated content. (2007) — Martha pole dancing, a notable storyline and a scene that caused outrage in Australia for its G rated content. (2007)

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Martha MacKenzie

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

In research: Martha MacKenzie appears in engineering 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 Martha MacKenzie 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: Martha MacKenzie is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Adoptee characters in soap operas, Australian female characters in soap operas, Fictional alcohol abusers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Martha MacKenzie 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 Martha MacKenzie in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Martha MacKenzie in simple terms?

Why does Martha MacKenzie matter?

Because it connects several engineering 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 Martha MacKenzie?

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 Martha MacKenzie.