astronomy

William Lauder Lindsay

William Lauder Lindsay 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 William Lauder Lindsay rather than just read about it. In short: Dr William Lauder Lindsay FRSE FLS LRCS (19 December 1829 – 24 November 1880) was a Scottish physician and botanist. As a physician he largely worked in the field of mental health.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Dr William Lauder Lindsay FRSE FLS LRCS (19 December 1829 – 24 November 1880) was a Scottish physician and botanist. As a physician he largely worked in the field of mental health. As a botanist he specialised in lichens.

Life

He was born on 19 December 1829 at 20 Gardners Crescent in western Edinburgh as the son of Helen Baird Lauder (1804–1883) and her husband James Lindsay of Register House/HM Sasine Office (1804–1874). He was educated at the High School in Edinburgh (being dux of 1844) then studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh receiving his doctorate (MD) in 1852 with the thesis 'The lichens'. In 1853 he began working as an assistant physician at the Crichton Royal Asylum in Dumfries. In 1854 he moved to be a physician at the Murray Royal Asylum in Perth and held this role until 1879. In 1858 he was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society (FLS) and in 1861 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposer for the latter was John Hutton Balfour. The Society gave him the Neill Prize of 1859 for his work on lichens. In 1861 and 1862 he took an extended trip to New Zealand later winning a silver medal in the New Zealand Exhibition of 1865 for services to Botany. He also made several trips to northern Europe. He died of exhaustion and malnutrition brought on by extreme dyspepsia on 24 November 1880 at his home at 3 Hartington Gardens in Edinburgh. He was aged 50. He is buried with his parents in Dean Cemetery in western Edinburgh. The grave lies on a short curved path in the south-west of the cemetery. In 1989, botanists John Charles David and David Leslie Hawksworth published Lauderlindsaya, which is a genus of fungi in the family Verrucariaceae and named in Lindsay's honour.

Publications Lindsay was a regular contributor to the British Medical Journal, other works include:

A Popular History of British Lichens (1856) Memoir on the Spermogones and Pycnides of Filamentous, Fruticulose and Foliaceous Lichens (1861, vol. 22, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh) (See wiktionary:spermogonium and pycnidium.) On the Geology of the Goldfields of Otago, New Zealand (1862, Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science] On the Geology of the New Zealand Gold-fields (1865) Observations on New Lichens and Fungi Collected in Otago, New Zealand (1866) Observations on New-Zealand Lichens (1866, vol. 25, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London) Contributions to New Zealand Botany (1868) Observations on the Lichens collected by Dr. Robert Brown, M.A., F.R.G.S., in West Greenland in 1867 (1871, vol. 27, Transactions of the Linnean Society of London) Memoir on the Spermogones and Pycnides of Crustaceous Lichens (1870); 1872 edition Memoirs on the Spermogones and Pycnides of Lichens (1872); 1874 edition The Superannuation of Officers in British Hospitals for the Insane (1875) Mind in the Lower Animals in Health and Disease (1879)

Family In 1859 he married Elizabeth Reid, daughter of William Paterson Reid WS of Demarara. She died in 1863. They had one daughter, Marion Jane Lindsay, who married Dr Francis Haultain of Edinburgh. His elder brother Wallace Lindsay (1827–1857) was also a physician, serving in the army. His younger brother David Patrick Lindsay (1831–1871) worked at General Register House.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with William Lauder Lindsay

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what William Lauder Lindsay 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 William Lauder Lindsay 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 William Lauder Lindsay 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 William Lauder Lindsay

In research: William Lauder Lindsay 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 William Lauder Lindsay 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: William Lauder Lindsay is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1829 births, 1880 deaths, 19th-century Scottish medical doctors, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for William Lauder Lindsay 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 William Lauder Lindsay in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what William Lauder Lindsay means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
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Frequently asked questions

What is William Lauder Lindsay in simple terms?

Dr William Lauder Lindsay FRSE FLS LRCS (19 December 1829 – 24 November 1880) was a Scottish physician and botanist. As a physician he largely worked in the field of mental health.

Why does William Lauder Lindsay 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 William Lauder Lindsay?

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 William Lauder Lindsay.