engineering

Mary Blade

Mary Blade 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 Mary Blade rather than just read about it. In short: Mary Plumb Blade (20 January 1913 – 4 December 1994) was an American engineer, director of the Green Camp from 1955 to 1972, and full-time professor of mechanical engineering in the engineering school of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art from 1946 to 1978. Early life and education Mary Frances Plumb was born on 20 January 1913 in Salt Lake City to Maude Irene (nee Augustine) and Hylon Theron Pl…

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Mary Plumb Blade (20 January 1913 – 4 December 1994) was an American engineer, director of the Green Camp from 1955 to 1972, and full-time professor of mechanical engineering in the engineering school of The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art from 1946 to 1978.

Early life and education Mary Frances Plumb was born on 20 January 1913 in Salt Lake City to Maude Irene (nee Augustine) and Hylon Theron Plumb, an electrical engineer. She graduated with a B.S. in engineering from the University of Utah, the first woman to do so, and an M.S. in industrial engineering from Columbia University. She was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority.

Career At the time of her appointment as a professor, Blade was "the only woman on the Cooper Union engineering faculty (where she initially taught drawing, mathematics and design) and one of few women on any engineering faculty in the United States". Her obituary stated that she was the first woman professor of mechanical/electrical engineering in New York City. Mary Blade helped organize the May 27–28, 1950 inaugural weekend of the Society of Women Engineers at Cooper Union's Green Engineering Camp. In 1978, Blade was featured in Chair: The current state of the art, with the who, the why, and the what of it by Peter Bradford and Barbara Prete with a chapter titled "Physical Forces and Damages, Your Sitting Behavior, Move." In 1980, the Engineering Design Graphics Division of the American Society for Engineering Education awarded Blade its Distinguished Service Award.

Personal life Mary Plumb married engineer Ellis Hardin Blade (1908–1986) on 31 December 1934 in Manhattan, New York and was known as Mary Blade or Mary Plumb Blade after this time. They were married for 62 years. Blade was also an avid and accomplished mountain climber. Professor Mary Plumb Blade died in Vancouver General Hospital on 4 December 1994, having suffered from Alzheimer's disease in her final years. She was survived by three siblings and "22 grand and great-grand nieces and nephews and her feline companion, Miss America of Vancouver"

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mary Blade

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

In research: Mary Blade 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 Mary Blade 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 Blade is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1913 births, 1994 deaths, 20th-century American mechanical engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mary Blade 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 Blade in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Mary Blade in simple terms?

Why does Mary Blade 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 Mary Blade?

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 Blade.