astronomy

Max Day

Max Day 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 Max Day rather than just read about it. In short: Maxwell Frank Cooper Day (21 December 1915 – 31 July 2017) was an Australian ecologist and the oldest living Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. Born in Sydney, New South Wales, he turned 100 in December 2015.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Maxwell Frank Cooper Day (21 December 1915 – 31 July 2017) was an Australian ecologist and the oldest living Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. Born in Sydney, New South Wales, he turned 100 in December 2015. He is well known for his work on myxomatosis and the myxoma virus in the 1940s in conjunction with Professor Frank Fenner. Day studied science at the University of Sydney, graduating BSc and being awarded the university medal in 1937. He completed a PhD at Harvard in 1941 as a Lehman Fellow, and worked for the Australian Government in Washington DC where he joined CSIRO in 1944. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1956. He served as the first Chief of the CSIRO Division of Forest Research from 1976 to 1980. His last published work was written when he was aged 97. He died aged 101 on 31 July 2017 in Canberra. The Max Day Environmental Science Fellowship Award is named in honour of Dr. Day. It is an annual award of up to $20,000 per recipient, supporting PhD students or early-career researchers in their work. The funding covers research expenses, educational courses, and travel costs. By sponsoring this award, Dr. Day recognized the support he received as a young researcher.

References

External links Jon Day (December 2015). "All in a Day's work ... Memoirs, stories, articles and images of Dr Max Day AO FAA compiled to celebrate Max's 100th birthday, 21 December 2015" (PDF). ceh.environmentalhistory-au-nz.org.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Max Day

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Max Day 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 Max Day 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 Max Day 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 Max Day

In research: Max Day 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 Max Day 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: Max Day is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1915 births, 2017 deaths, Australian ecologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Max Day 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 Max Day in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Max Day in simple terms?

Why does Max Day 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 Max Day?

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 Max Day.