Articles tagged with "Caltech_history"

04/25/2013 10:37:00
Fifty Years of Clearing the Skies
Douglas Smith
Ringed by mountains and capped by a temperature inversion that traps bad air, Los Angeles has had bouts of smog since the turn of the 20th century. An outbreak in 1903 rendered the skies so dark that many people mistook it for a solar eclipse. Angelenos might now be living in a state of perpetual midnight—assuming we could live here at all—were it not for the work of Caltech Professor of Bio-organic Chemistry Arie Jan Haagen-Smit. How he did it is told here largely in his own words, excerpted from Caltech's Engineering & Science magazine between 1950 and 1962. (See "Related Links" for the original articles.)
03/21/2013 09:22:35
The First Genetic-Linkage Map
Douglas Smith
A hand-drawn map published 100 years ago held the first proof that chromosomes carry our genetic material.
03/15/2013 23:09:14
Fifty Years of Quasars
Douglas Smith
In a paper published on March 16, 1963, Caltech astronomer Maarten Schmidt announced the discovery of the first quasar (he didn't call it that) and opened a new window through which we can see the very distant universe.
03/15/2013 10:10:08
Two Decades of Discoveries
Marcus Woo

Although Keith Matthews was about to make history, he went about his tasks like any others.

03/07/2013 13:42:29
Francis Clauser
Douglas Smith
Francis H. Clauser (BS '34, MS '35, PhD '37), the Clark Blanchard Millikan Professor of Engineering, Emeritus, passed away on March 3, 2013, at age 99. Born in the decade following the Wright Brothers' first powered flight, he was a founder of modern aeronautics and helped usher in the Space Age.
12/13/2012 19:57:09
A Close Encounter of the First Kind
Douglas Smith
A new era in planetary science began in 1962, when Mariner 2 and the 200-inch Hale telescope simultaneously took a close look at Venus.
11/19/2012 22:33:03
One Metal Scoop, Slightly Used
Douglas Smith
On November 20, 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean paid a visit to JPL's Surveyor 3, which had landed on the moon two and a half years earlier.
11/15/2012 09:11:13
Bottling Liquid Gold
Andrew Allan

If you happen to see groups of people perched in the trees along Caltech's famed Olive Walk and Beckman Mall tomorrow, whacking at the branches with rakes and PVC pipes—rest assured there's nothin

09/26/2012 08:59:50
Caltech and Princeton University Press Release Thirteenth Volume of Einstein Papers
Kimm Fesenmaier
A new volume in the Einstein Papers Project is scheduled to be released on September 25. This volume covers a turbulent 15 months in the physicist's life and includes several hundred previously unpublished and unknown articles and letters, some of which express his desire for "a normal life."
09/22/2012 09:56:13
A Worthy Endeavor
Douglas Smith
The space shuttle Endeavour's final flight ended Friday, September 21, when it landed at Los Angeles International Airport en route to its new life as an exhibit at the California Science Center. But without Caltech professors Christopher Brennen and Allan Acosta and alumnus Sheldon Rubin, the entire endeavor might not have been possible.
09/13/2012 11:46:57
Whatever Happened to the Mars Global Surveyor?
Douglas Smith

On September 11, 1997, the Mars Global Surveyor slipped into orbit around the Red Planet. Like JPL's Mariner and Viking missions before it, MGS (as it was affectionately known) fundamentally changed our view of Mars.

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