Caltech

Articles tagged with "Watson_Lecture"

05/20/2013

Decision Making and Quality Control in Early Moments of a Protein’s Life

Douglas Smith

Professor of Chemistry Shu-ou Shan studies the gears and springs in the molecular machinery of life. She’ll be giving us a guided tour of the cellular assembly line at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, May 22, 2013 in Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium. Admission is free.

08/28/2012

Notes from the Back Row: "Taming Turbulence"

Douglas Smith

"Turbulence is everywhere," says Beverley McKeon—from continent-spanning weather systems down to the swirls of air your car leaves behind itself as you drive. "I think about things like ships, planes, and pipelines," she explains, noting that about half of the energy consumed by each of those three transportation systems goes to counteract turbulence-induced drag.

07/06/2012

Notes from the Back Row: "Making Molecules"

Douglas Smith

"I grew up cooking, waiting tables, and doing dishes in the family diner in Chicago," says Jonas Peters. These days, as Caltech's Bren Professor of Chemistry, Peters is more an executive chef than a spatula jockey: he coordinates the menu and helps dream up the recipes for new molecules, but his students whip them up and wash the glassware.

06/22/2012

Notes from the Back Row: "The Isotope Time Machine"

Douglas Smith

Were dinosaurs slow and stupid, as used to be the prevailing wisdom, or nimble and smart enough to eat an attorney, as in the 1993 film Jurassic Park? The answer depends largely on whether the T. Rex in question is cold blooded, like an alligator, or warm blooded, like a bird.

05/18/2012

Notes from the Back Row: "An Explosion of Explosions"

Douglas Smith

In his Watson Lecture given on April 25, Shri Kulkarni, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Science and the director of the Caltech Optical Observatories, described how Caltech's fully automated Palomar Transient Factory—Kulkarni calls it "Transients 'R' Us"—is revolutionizing how we explore the changing sky.

05/08/2012

Notes from the Back Row: "What Parents Want—Evidence from Child Adoption"

Douglas Smith

What do parents want—aside from kids who come home on time and never talk with their mouths full—and why is an economist trying to answer that question? Because, at its heart, economics is all about the process of making choices.

04/30/2012

Notes from the Back Row: "Electrons In Flatland"

Douglas Smith

In James Eisenstein's Watson lecture on January 18, 2012, he uses vivid analogies and nifty animations to lead us through the basics of quantum electronics to his own work with some very bizarre particles—even for quantum mechanics.