astronomy

Rachel Somerville

Rachel Somerville 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 Rachel Somerville rather than just read about it. In short: Rachel S. Somerville is an American astrophysicist and astronomer and holds the George A. and Margaret M.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Rachel S. Somerville is an American astrophysicist and astronomer and holds the George A. and Margaret M. Downsbrough Chair in Astrophysics at Rutgers University. She is known for theoretical research into galaxy formation and evolution. She was awarded the 2013 Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics “for providing fundamental insights into galaxy formation and evolution using semi-analytic modeling, simulations and observations.”

Career Somerville attended Gompers Secondary School in San Diego, a math/science/computer magnet school, where she first became interested in physics. She holds an undergraduate degree in physics from Reed College, awarded in 1989, and a Ph.D. in 1997 from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she worked with Joel Primack. Her postdoctoral appointments included the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Cambridge University. She held the position of Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan and was a staff astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg. She held a joint appointment at the Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute. In July 2011 she joined the faculty of Rutgers University as a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, where she was appointed the inaugural holder of the George A and Margaret M. Downsbrough Chair in Astrophysics. Somerville is a member of the GOODS team to survey the formation and evolution of galaxies in the early universe. She leads the theoretical group of the CANDELS survey, the largest project yet undertaken with the Hubble Space Telescope. She is recognized for creating computer simulations of the physics underlying galaxy formation and evolution. She is married to Rutgers professor of law and philosophy Alec Walen.

References

External links Rachel Somerville's home page at Rutgers Review article: Why we need wide-field imaging from space to understand galaxy formation. Book: Co-evolution of Central Black Holes and Galaxies (IAU S267), eds. Bradley M. Peterson, Rachel S. Somerville, and Thaisa Storchi-Bergmann.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Rachel Somerville

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Rachel Somerville 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 Rachel Somerville 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 Rachel Somerville 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 Rachel Somerville

In research: Rachel Somerville 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 Rachel Somerville 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: Rachel Somerville is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American women astronomers, Living people, Rutgers University faculty, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Rachel Somerville 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 Rachel Somerville in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Rachel Somerville in simple terms?

Rachel S. Somerville is an American astrophysicist and astronomer and holds the George A. and Margaret M.

Why does Rachel Somerville 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 Rachel Somerville?

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 Rachel Somerville.