astronomy

Scott Tremaine

Scott Tremaine 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 Scott Tremaine rather than just read about it. In short: Scott Duncan Tremaine (born 1950) is a Canadian-born astrophysicist. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of London, the Royal Society of Canada and the National Academy of Sciences.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Scott Duncan Tremaine (born 1950) is a Canadian-born astrophysicist. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of London, the Royal Society of Canada and the National Academy of Sciences. Tremaine is widely regarded as one of the world's leading astrophysicists for his contributions to the theory of Solar System and galactic dynamics. Tremaine is the namesake of asteroid 3806 Tremaine. He is credited with coining the name "Kuiper belt".

Career He obtained a bachelor's degree at McMaster University in 1971, and a PhD from Princeton University in 1975. He further received an honorary PhD from McMaster University in 1996. He was an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1981 to 1985. He became the first director of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Toronto in 1986, a position he held until the end of his ten-year term in 1996. He gained the rare distinction of "University Professor" at the University of Toronto in 1995. In 1997, he left CITA and took up a position as a professor at Princeton University, becoming chair of the Astrophysical Sciences department from 1998 to 2006. Scott Tremaine is currently a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, for which he left Princeton University in 2007, being replaced as department chair by David Spergel. He has been married to Prof. Marilyn Mantei Tremaine for more than two decades, an expert in human-computer interaction who is the past chair of the SIGCHI section of the Association for Computing Machinery.

Scientific accomplishments

Tremaine, along with Peter Goldreich, correctly predicted that shepherd moons created Saturn's thin F ring, as well as the thin rings of Uranus in 1979. The Saturnian moons Prometheus and Pandora were first observed in 1981 and shepherding moons were found around Uranus' rings in 1986. Tremaine cowrote the book Galactic Dynamics with James Binney, which is often regarded as the standard reference in the field and has been cited more than three thousand times in scholarly publications. Tremaine, along with collaborators at the University of Toronto, showed that short period comets originate in the Kuiper belt. Tremaine is credited with suggesting that the apparent "double nucleus" of the Andromeda Galaxy was in fact a single ring of old red stars.

Awards and honours In 2020, he was elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society. In 2013, he won the Tomalla Foundation Prize for his work on gravitational dynamics. In 2010, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Toronto "in recognition of his scholarly contributions to the field of astrophysics, and his administrative leadership in support of Canadian and international science". In 2005, he won the Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. In 2002, he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences. In 1999, Tremaine also received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from St. Mary's University. In 1998, he won the Dirk Brouwer Award which is awarded by the Division of Dynamical Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society "in recognition of his many outstanding contributions to a wide range of dynamical problems in both solar-system and galactic dynamics." In 1997, he was awarded the Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics for "diverse and insightful applications of dynamics to planets, rings, comets, galaxies and the universe." In 1996, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science award by McMaster University. In 1994, Tremaine became a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and also of the Royal Society of Canada. In 1990, he was awarded the Rutherford Memorial Medal in Physics by the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada for "his outstanding contributions to the field to [sic] astrophysics, particularly his spectacular success in predicting the properties of planetary ring dynamics and the extraplanetary objects that control them". In 1990, he won the C.S. Beals Award from the Canadian Astronomical Society which is awarded for outstanding research to a Canadian astronomer or an astronomer working in Canada. In 1983, he won the Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy given by the American Astronomical Society in recognition of "his many outstanding contributions to a wide range of dynamical problems in both solar-system and galactic dynamics".

External links Scholarly Works by Scott Tremaine from the Astrophysical Data System Scott Tremaine's Homepage at the Institute for Advanced Study "Astrophysical Wonders, Part I – Solar System Astronomy – A Conversation with Scott Tremaine" Archived 8 June 2019 at the Wayback Machine, Ideas Roadshow, 2015 "Astrophysical Wonders, Part II – Galactic Astronomy – A Conversation with Scott Tremaine" Archived 8 June 2019 at the Wayback Machine, Ideas Roadshow, 2015

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Scott Tremaine

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Scott Tremaine 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 Scott Tremaine 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 Scott Tremaine 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 Scott Tremaine

In research: Scott Tremaine 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 Scott Tremaine 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: Scott Tremaine is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1950 births, 20th-century Canadian astronomers, 21st-century Canadian astronomers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Scott Tremaine 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 Scott Tremaine in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Scott Tremaine in simple terms?

Scott Duncan Tremaine (born 1950) is a Canadian-born astrophysicist. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of London, the Royal Society of Canada and the National Academy of Sciences.

Why does Scott Tremaine 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 Scott Tremaine?

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 Scott Tremaine.