astronomy

Mary Schaps

Mary Schaps 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 Mary Schaps rather than just read about it. In short: Mary Elizabeth Schaps (Hebrew: מלכה אלישבע שפס; born August 6, 1948), also known as Malka Elisheva Schaps, is an Israeli-American mathematician. She is Professor of Mathematics and Dean of the Faculty of Exact Sciences at Bar Ilan University.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Mary Elizabeth Schaps (Hebrew: מלכה אלישבע שפס; born August 6, 1948), also known as Malka Elisheva Schaps, is an Israeli-American mathematician. She is Professor of Mathematics and Dean of the Faculty of Exact Sciences at Bar Ilan University. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University, and has published in deformation theory, group theory, and representation theory. She is also a writer, authoring several novels under the pseudonym Rachel Pomerantz.

Early and personal life Mary Elizabeth Kramer was born on August 6, 1948, in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. From 1965 to 1969, she was educated at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, majoring in mathematics, philosophy and history, and graduating summa cum laude in 1969. She then attended Harvard University as a mathematics graduate student: she completed her Master of Arts (MA) degree in 1971 and her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1972. Her doctoral thesis was titled "Non-singular deformations of space curves, using determinantal schemes": her advisors were David Mumford and Heisuke Hironaka. She was brought up a Presbyterian and then a Unitarian Universalism. She became interested in Judaism, and formally converted to Conservative Judaism in college. In 1968, she married David Schaps, a classics professor who was then also studying for a PhD at Harvard. They both gradually felt more and more drawn to Orthodox Judaism and considered themselves Haredi by the time they had completed their doctorates. The couple made aliyah (moved to Israel) in 1972. Together, she and her husband had two children: this was a small family by Haredi standards, and they raised four more foster children. They live in Bnei Brak, a Haredi city near Tel Aviv.

Career Schaps had some teaching experience at Harvard University: she was teaching assistant from 1971 to 1972, and a lecturer at the 1975 Harvard Summer School. In 1972, having moved to Israel, she was appointed a lecturer in mathematics at Tel Aviv University. In her second year in Israel the Yom Kippur War occurred: the change in language, culture and the threat to her new family were a shock. In 1977, she moved to Bar-Ilan University as a senior lecturer: she was promoted to associate professor in 1991 and full professor in 2006. She was the only female Haredi professor in Israel. In October 2013, she was appointed Dean of Exact Sciences at Bar-Ilan University: having been the only female Haredi professor, she now became the highest ranking Haredi woman in Israeli academia. She stepped down as dean in 2015, and was made Professor Emeritus on retirement in 2016.

Selected publications Kanovei, Vladimir; Katz, Karin U.; Katz, Mikhail G.; Schaps, Mary (2015), "Proofs and Retributions, Or: Why Sarah Can't Take Limits", Foundations of Science, 20: 1–25, doi:10.1007/s10699-013-9340-0, S2CID 123352636. Katz, Mikhail G.; Schaps, Mary; Vishne, Uzi. Logarithmic growth of systole of arithmetic Riemann surfaces along congruence subgroups. J. Differential Geom. 76 (2007), no. 3, 399–422. Schaps, Mary. Deformations of Cohen–Macaulay schemes of codimension 2 and non-singular deformations of space curves. Amer. J. Math. 99 (1977), no. 4, 669–685. Schaps, Mary; Zakay-Illouz, Evelyne. Combinatorial partial tilting complexes for the Brauer star algebras. Representations of algebras (São Paulo, 1999), 187–207, Lecture Notes in Pure and Appl. Math., 224, Dekker, New York, 2002.

References

External links Prof. Malka Schaps Archived 2012-04-10 at the Wayback Machine Bar Ilan University

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mary Schaps

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

In research: Mary Schaps 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 Mary Schaps 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 Schaps is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1948 births, Academic staff of Bar-Ilan University, Academic staff of Tel Aviv University, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mary Schaps 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 Schaps in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Mary Schaps in simple terms?

Why does Mary Schaps 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 Mary Schaps?

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 Schaps.