physics

Mary Barkas

Mary Barkas 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 Mary Barkas rather than just read about it. In short: Mary Rushton Barkas (7 September 1889 – 17 April 1959) was a psychiatrist, physician and author from New Zealand. She worked at the Bethlem Royal Hospital, where she was the first female house physician, and the Maudsley Hospital in London, United Kingdom.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Mary Rushton Barkas (7 September 1889 – 17 April 1959) was a psychiatrist, physician and author from New Zealand. She worked at the Bethlem Royal Hospital, where she was the first female house physician, and the Maudsley Hospital in London, United Kingdom.

Early life Mary Rushton Barkas was born in 1889 in Christchurch, New Zealand, to Frederick Barkas, who worked at the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, and Amy Barkas née Parker. She attended Christchurch Girls' High School and was the dux of the school in 1905. She went on to study at Victoria University College in Wellington, graduating with a BSc in 1908, and an MSc in 1910, and later studied under Carl Jung at King's College London. During the First World War, she studied medicine at St Mary's Hospital and the London School of Medicine for Women, graduating in 1918. At the outbreak of war she was in Switzerland on a tramping trip; it took several weeks to return to London. In 1922, Barkas travelled to Vienna to study for a graduate diploma, where she worked under Otto Rank.

Career In 1919, Barkas became the first female house physician at the Bethlem Royal Hospital. In 1923, Barkas was one of four full-time psychiatrists employed at the newly opened Maudsley Hospital, and she worked there until 1927. Her work focused upon organic psychiatry, psychoanalysis and child psychiatry, and she described the hospital as a "shelter and refuge" which offered "complete protection and satisfaction of all needs." From 1928 to 1933, Barkas worked as a Medical Superintendent at The Lawn Hospital in Lincoln. In this role, Barkas helped to reduce the expenditure of the hospital. After her father died in 1932, Barkas retired and returned to New Zealand. She moved to Tapu, and studied Chinese philosophy. In 1937, she wrote the feminist book Wages for Wives, which challenged the stereotypical views of working women in New Zealand. In the same year, she was one of 15 psychologists who provided references for Arthur Segal's application for a British work permit.

Death Barkas died at Tapu near Thames on 17 April 1959, and was cremated at Purewa Cemetery on 20 April, although some accounts suggest she died in 1961.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mary Barkas

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mary Barkas 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 Mary Barkas 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 Mary Barkas 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 Mary Barkas

In research: Mary Barkas 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 Mary Barkas 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: Mary Barkas is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1889 births, 1959 deaths, 20th-century New Zealand medical doctors, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mary Barkas 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 Mary Barkas in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Mary Barkas in simple terms?

Why does Mary Barkas 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 Mary Barkas?

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 Mary Barkas.