astronomy

Nikolai Schipczinsky

Nikolai Schipczinsky 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 Nikolai Schipczinsky rather than just read about it. In short: Nikolai Valerianovich Schipczinsky (Russian: Никола́й Валериа́нович Шипчи́нский; 1886 – 1955) was a Russian and Soviet botanist and taxonomist, who was director of the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden in 1934-1938 and 1942-1948 respectively. Biography Schipczinsky was born in 1886 in Helsinki, Finland, the son of an accountant quartermaster and a housewife.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Nikolai Valerianovich Schipczinsky (Russian: Никола́й Валериа́нович Шипчи́нский; 1886 – 1955) was a Russian and Soviet botanist and taxonomist, who was director of the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden in 1934-1938 and 1942-1948 respectively.

Biography Schipczinsky was born in 1886 in Helsinki, Finland, the son of an accountant quartermaster and a housewife. In 1909 he graduated from the Russian school in Helsinki, and started studying biology at the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of the Saint Petersburg State University. As of 1910, he studied the flora of the Far East in the Herbarium of the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden under Vladimir Leontyevich Komarov. He participated in field expeditions to the Trans-Baikal Barguzin district (1912), the South-Ussuri region in the Primorskaya Oblast (1913), the Semipalatinsk Oblast (1914), and Iran (1916). In 1915, he joined the staff of the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden, where he continued to work until his death at first as lecturer (1915), then conservator in the Herbarium (1915-1931), senior botanist for living plants (1931-1933) and director of the Museum (1933-1934). From 1934 on, he was director of the Botanical Garden. In 1939-1941 he was sent to assist in the construction of Balkhash town, where he led the landscaping around the Balkhashtsvetmet copper plant and the city of Balkhash. During World War II, Schipczinsky assisted in the defense of Saint Petersburg by designing a camouflage landscape for the city. Schipczinsky was involved in the project organization and construction of the Botanical Garden of Moscow (1936-1937), the Botanical Garden of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences in Minsk (1939), and the Botanical Garden of the Kyrgyz SSR. Herbarium specimens collected by Schipczinsky during his expeditions are preserved in the Herbarium of the Komarov Botanical Institute, and the photo’s he took during these expeditions are kept in the Botanical Museum. The standard author abbreviation Schipcz. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Nikolai Schipczinsky

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Nikolai Schipczinsky 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 Nikolai Schipczinsky 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 Nikolai Schipczinsky 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 Nikolai Schipczinsky

In research: Nikolai Schipczinsky 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 Nikolai Schipczinsky 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: Nikolai Schipczinsky is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1886 births, 1955 deaths, 20th-century Finnish botanists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Nikolai Schipczinsky 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 Nikolai Schipczinsky in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Nikolai Schipczinsky in simple terms?

Why does Nikolai Schipczinsky 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 Nikolai Schipczinsky?

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 Nikolai Schipczinsky.