astronomy

Mia Boissevain

Mia Boissevain 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 Mia Boissevain rather than just read about it. In short: Maria (Mia) Boissevain (8 February 1878 – 8 March 1959) was a Dutch malacologist and feminist. Life Boissevain was the youngest of nine children.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Maria (Mia) Boissevain (8 February 1878 – 8 March 1959) was a Dutch malacologist and feminist.

Life Boissevain was the youngest of nine children. Her father was a shipowner from a rich Huguenot merchant family and her mother was the daughter of a lawyer.

Education Boissevain attended a high school for girls. After graduating, Boissevain attended a lecture on botany by Hugo de Vries, which sparked her interest in the subject. In 1896, she started studying natural science at the University of Amsterdam. Here she specialised in zoology. After graduating, she moved to Zürich to do further research on Dentalium species and at age 25 attained the title of doctor. Afterwards, she moved back to the Netherlands where she became a curator for Artis, a Dutch zoo and association for zoology. She would remain active as a researcher until 1915, but would retain her interest in zoology afterwards. Four mollusk taxa are named after her: the species Cadulus boissevaini, Antalis boissevainae, Fustiaria Mariae and the genus Boissevainia.

Women's rights While in Zürich, Boissevain encountered international students who were interested in women's rights. When she returned to the Netherlands, she visited Aletta Jacobs to talk about the Dutch women's rights movement. In 1908, Jacobs asked Boissevain to help with the preparation for the third International Congress of Women in Amsterdam. Here, she met other prominent feminists and would go on to become more involved in the women's movement. Together with Rosa Manus, who she had gone to school with, she founded a commission for propaganda within the Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht and was its president until 1912. The same year, she and Manus proposed an exhibition that would highlight the circumstances of women between 1813 and 1913, inspired by the exhibitions held to celebrate 100 years of independence from the French. She wrote the catalog for the exhibition De Vrouw 1813–1913, which became successful. During the First World War, Boissevain helped the families of mobilised soldiers and Flemish refugees. In 1915, she was one of the organisers of the International Congress of Women in the Hague. In the same year, she also wrote a book about her life titled Een Amsterdamsche familie, which was published in 1967. After 1915, Boissevain moved to Great Britain and adopted two English girls. She lived in Switzerland with her two daughters from around 1925 to 1928, moved to the Netherlands afterwards and lived in London from 1930 until her death in 1959. She is buried in Amsterdam.

References

External links Academia.edu Vrouwenlexicon

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mia Boissevain

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mia Boissevain 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 Mia Boissevain 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 Mia Boissevain 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 Mia Boissevain

In research: Mia Boissevain 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 Mia Boissevain 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: Mia Boissevain is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1878 births, 1959 deaths, Boissevain family, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mia Boissevain 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 Mia Boissevain in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Mia Boissevain in simple terms?

Maria (Mia) Boissevain (8 February 1878 – 8 March 1959) was a Dutch malacologist and feminist. Life Boissevain was the youngest of nine children.

Why does Mia Boissevain 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 Mia Boissevain?

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 Mia Boissevain.