astronomy

Tom Slick

Tom Slick 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 Tom Slick rather than just read about it. In short: Thomas Baker Slick Jr. (May 6, 1916 – October 6, 1962) was a San Antonio, Texas-based inventor, businessman, adventurer, and heir to an oil business.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Thomas Baker Slick Jr. (May 6, 1916 – October 6, 1962) was a San Antonio, Texas-based inventor, businessman, adventurer, and heir to an oil business. Slick's father, Thomas Baker Slick Sr., a.k.a. "The King of the Wildcatters", had made a fortune during the Oklahoma oil boom of the 1910s. He was notable for discovering Oklahoma's then-largest oil field, the Cushing Oil Field.

Career During the 1950s, Slick was an adventurer. He turned his attention to expeditions to investigate the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti, Bigfoot and the Trinity Alps giant salamander. Slick's interest in cryptozoology was little known until the 1989 publication of the biography Tom Slick and the Search for Yeti, by Loren Coleman. Coleman continued his study of Slick in 2002 with Tom Slick: True Life Encounters in Cryptozoology. That book mentions many of Slick's adventures, in politics, art, science, and cryptozoology, including his involvement with the CIA and Howard Hughes. Slick financed Peter Byrne's pursuits of yeti and bigfoot. Slick was a friend of many celebrities, including Hughes and fellow flier Jimmy Stewart. Stewart, for example, assisted a Slick-backed expedition in smuggling a piece of the Pangboche Yeti hand back to England for scientific analysis, Loren Coleman was to discover from Slick's files and confirmation from Stewart before his death. Slick founded several research organizations, beginning with the forerunner of the Texas Biomedical Research Institute in 1941. His most well-known legacy is the non-profit Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), which he founded in 1947 to seek revolutionary advancements in technology. SwRI continues to advance pure and applied science in a variety of fields from lubricant and motor fuel formulation to solar physics and planetary science. He also founded the Mind Science Foundation in San Antonio in 1958 to do consciousness research. Tom assisted his brother, Earl F. Slick, in founding Slick Airways, one of the first US scheduled freight airlines. In 1953 Trinity University awarded him an honorary doctor of science. In 1955 he was awarded a patent for the lift slab method of constructing concrete buildings. He was an advocate of world peace. In 1958 he published the book, Permanent Peace: A Check and Balance Plan. He funded the Tom Slick World Peace lectures at the LBJ Library, and the Tom Slick Professorship of World Peace at the University of Texas. Nicolas Cage was to have portrayed Slick in a movie, Tom Slick: Monster Hunter, but the project stalled.

Art collection Slick was an avid collector of modern art. His collection was surveyed by the McNay Art Museum with an exhibition and catalogue titled Tom Slick: International Art Collector.

Death On October 6, 1962, Slick was returning from a Canadian hunting trip when his airplane crashed in Montana. Reportedly, the aircraft disintegrated in flight. A wing broke off in violent wind shear over the mountains. He was buried in Mission Burial Park, San Antonio.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tom Slick

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tom Slick 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 Tom Slick 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 Tom Slick 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 Tom Slick

In research: Tom Slick 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 Tom Slick 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: Tom Slick is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1916 births, 1962 deaths, 20th-century American people, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tom Slick 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 Tom Slick in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Tom Slick in simple terms?

Thomas Baker Slick Jr. (May 6, 1916 – October 6, 1962) was a San Antonio, Texas-based inventor, businessman, adventurer, and heir to an oil business.

Why does Tom Slick 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 Tom Slick?

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 Tom Slick.