astronomy

Nehemiah Strong

Nehemiah Strong 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 Nehemiah Strong rather than just read about it. In short: Rev. Nehemiah Strong (24 February 1729 (N.S.) – 13 August 1807) was an American astronomer and meteorologist who was the first Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Yale College from 1770 and produced a series of annual ephemerides, the astronomical element in almanacs, which were printed in Hartford, Connecticut, and in New Haven.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Rev. Nehemiah Strong (24 February 1729 (N.S.) – 13 August 1807) was an American astronomer and meteorologist who was the first Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Yale College from 1770 and produced a series of annual ephemerides, the astronomical element in almanacs, which were printed in Hartford, Connecticut, and in New Haven. Strong was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, eldest of three children of Nehemiah and Hannah Strong and the grandson of Samuel and Esther (Clapp) Strong, of Northampton, Massachusetts. Nehemiah Strong graduated from Yale College in 1755. He entered on a tutorship at Yale in November 1757 and was soon licensed to preach and was settled Congregationalist minister at Turkey Hill, now part of East Granby, Connecticut, 1761–67. His marriage to Lydia Smith proved to be an embarrassment, when after she had been granted a divorce in February 1759 on grounds of abandonment, her husband, Andrew Burr Jr of New Haven, having gone to the West Indies in January 1755, Burr reappeared and her marriage to Nehemiah Strong was necessarily annulled, and as a result of entanglements he was dismissed from his pastorate at Turkey Hill, 23 June 1767. He married Mrs Mary Thomas, the widow of Dr Lemuel Thomas of Newtown, 15 June 1778. Thereafter he resided in Newtown, in New Milford, where he kept an academy for boys, and, from 1803 in Bridgeport, giving occasional sermons and teaching to the time of his death. He resigned his chair at Yale in 1781, in a dispute over his salary, exacerbated by the sense on the part of the Corporation that he was not a sufficiently ardent Patriot. He represented Newtown in the Connecticut General Assembly, May 1784. His portrait by Ralph Earl, painted in 1789–90, was presented to Yale by the artist and remains in the university's collection. His treatise on astronomy won him such a wide reputation that anonymous almanacs were attributed to him. His first essay at compiling an almanac was anonymous, for Watson's Register for 1775, printed at Hartford; his second essay was The Connecticut Almanack for 1778, which identified his Yale title only. From 1782 he published almanacs under his own name at Hartford and as "Hosea Stafford" in New Haven (1776–1804). In addition, finding that he was publicly assumed to be the "Isaac Bickerstaff", having disclaimed authorship in a letter to the Connecticut Journal, New Haven, 27 October 1784, he apparently decided to take up the slack and issue almanacs as "Bickerstaff" himself: they appeared at Hartford for several years after 1785. In a letter of 6 May 1803 to Elisha Babcock, Strong remarks that the calculations for the forthcoming year will be his last:

I am pretty well Tired of the Business. For 29 years past I have Successively furnished one or more Copies for Printer; generally two, sometimes three in a year. And I think I have done my Part. Tis an Elaborate fatiguing Business, and requires the closest care and Attention to do the Business with proper accuracy, and takes a large Portion of my Time. He recommended his pupil David Sanford of Newtown, Connecticut.

Notes

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Nehemiah Strong

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Nehemiah Strong 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 Nehemiah Strong 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 Nehemiah Strong 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 Nehemiah Strong

In research: Nehemiah Strong 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 Nehemiah Strong 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: Nehemiah Strong is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1729 births, 1807 deaths, 18th-century American astronomers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Nehemiah Strong 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 Nehemiah Strong in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Nehemiah Strong in simple terms?

Why does Nehemiah Strong 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 Nehemiah Strong?

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 Nehemiah Strong.