Maarten Schmidt (left) and Donald Lynden-Bell (center) receive the Kavli Prize from Crown Prince Haakon Mag- nus in Stockholm.

Faculty file

Schmidt wins must be emitting hundreds of times Honors and more energy than the 10 billion stars kavli Prize of the Milky Way. Later, researchers awards Maarten Schmidt, the Moseley learned that this glut of energy spews R&D magazine has honored the work Professor of Astronomy, Emeritus, from a volume of space no larger than of Liepmann Professor of Aeronau- has been awarded the $1 million the size of our own solar system. It tics and professor of bioengineering Kavli Prize for his contributions in was Lynden-Bell who suggested that Morteza Gharib (PhD ’83) and his astrophysics. He is one of the seven a supermassive black hole feasting team, including Emilio Graff (PhD first recipients of the prize, and shares on matter at the center of distant ’07) and postdoctoral fellow Francis- the astrophysics award with Donald galaxies was generating the prodi- co Pereira with the R&D 100 Award. Lynden-Bell, of Cambridge Univer- gious amounts of energy. And after The group designed a camera that sity, who was a Caltech postdoc from studying the evolution and distribution creates a three-dimensional image by 1961 to 1962. of quasars, Schmidt discovered that extracting information from a series Schmidt and Lynden-Bell are quasars were more abundant when of images. The researchers say the known for discovering that quasars the universe was younger. camera has a myriad of applications, are galaxies harboring supermas- “I’m delighted with the award. It is including underwater surveillance, sive black holes billions of light-years in particular a most pleasant surprise analyzing a person’s gait, and assist- away—and not stars in our own gal- after so many years,” Schmidt says. ing surgeries. The award recognizes axy, as was once believed. The Kavli “After all, it’s been 45 years since I 100 of the most significant, commer- Astrophysics Prize Committee said, found the red shift in quasar 3C273.” cialized technologies from the past “Maarten Schmidt and Donald Lyn- Schmidt was the executive officer year. den-Bell’s seminal work dramatically for astronomy at Caltech from 1972 Julia Greer, assistant profes- expanded the scale of the observable to 1975 and chaired the Division of sor of materials science, has been universe and led to our present view Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy recognized by Technology Review of the violent universe in which mas- for the following three years; he then magazine as one of the world’s top sive black holes play a key role.” served as the last director of the Hale innovators under the age of 35 for her In 1963, using the 200-inch Hale Observatories from 1978 to 1980. work with materials on a nanoscale Telescope on Palomar Mountain, Despite being named an emeritus level. Selected from more than 300 Schmidt studied the visible-light professor 12 years ago, he has nominees by a panel of expert judges spectrum of quasar 3C273. He continued his research, studying ever- and the editorial staff of Technology discovered that its spectrum was more-distant quasars and peering Review, the TR35 is an elite group shifted toward longer wavelengths, a farther into the universe’s past. of accomplished, young innovators. phenomenon called the Doppler ef- The other Kavli Prize recipients are —JW fect, in which the emitted light from a being recognized for contributions source depends on its motion relative in nanoscience and neuroscience. to the observer. Called a redshift, this The prize was established through a difference in wavelength meant the partnership between the Norwegian quasar was speeding away from Earth Academy of Science and Letters, the at 47,000 kilometers per second. Kavli Foundation, and the Norwegian Looking at the spectrum of another Ministry of Education and Research, quasar, the astronomers found it was and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign sprinting away at twice the speed Affairs. The winners received the of 3C273. Schmidt calculated that prizes at an award ceremony in Oslo these objects lay beyond our galaxy, on September 9. —EN and he immediately realized that they

Fall 2008 ENGINEERING & SCIENCE 43 OBITUARy

New division Philip G. dock Professor of Biology and Nobel Laureate Max Delbrück. Delbrück was chairs Saffman studying the diffusion of protein and Andrew Lange, the Goldberger Pro- 1931-2008 lipid molecules in biological mem- fessor of Physics, has been tapped branes, and he would walk around as the new chair of the Division of Philip Geoffrey Saffman, an influential the corner to Saffman’s house for Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy. teacher and noted researcher in fluid ideas. In 1975, the two scientists from Lange has been at Caltech since mechanics, died peacefully after a disparate fields published a paper, 1994, developing experiments to long illness on Sunday, August 17, in “Brownian Motion in Biological Mem- study the early universe. Pasadena. He was 77 years old. branes,” that remains well cited today. Richard Murray (BS ’85), the Saffman, the Theodore von Kármán Born in Leeds, England, Saffman Everhart Professor of Control and Professor of Applied Mathematics received his BA, MA, and PhD from Dynamical Systems and director of and Aeronautics, Emeritus, studied the University of Cambridge. In 1964 Information Science and Technol- vortex instability and the dynamics he accepted Caltech’s appointment ogy, is now the interim chair of the of arrays of vortices. In particular, he as a full professor in fluid mechanics Division of Engineering and Applied looked into the phenomenon of vis- within the Division of Engineering and Science. Having served as the chair cous fingering, which became known Applied Science. He was named von from 2000 to 2005, Murray will hold as the Saffman–Taylor instability. This Kármán Professor in 1995. the position until the next division occurs when a low-viscosity fluid is He was a Fellow of the American chair is found. injected into a higher-viscosity fluid. Academy of Arts and Sciences and His work with vortices also led him in 1988 was elected a Fellow of the to a new mathematical analysis of the Royal Society, England’s premiere wake turbulence caused by jets as scientific organization. He also re- they take off, resulting in a theory de- ceived the Otto Laporte Award from scribing the conditions behind several the American Physical Society. aircraft accidents. Saffman served as associate editor “Saffman was one of the leading for both the Journal of Fluid Mechan- figures in modern fluid mechanics,” ics and Physical Review Letters and said Dan Meiron, the Jones Profes- was most recently an editorial board sor of Applied and Computational member for the journal Studies in Ap- Mathematics and Computer Science. plied Mathematics. “His research had an impact in almost Saffman is survived by his wife, every part of the field.” A prolific Ruth; children Louise, Mark, and scholar with a dry sense of humor, Emma; and grandchildren Timothy, he was able to focus on the essence Gregory, Rae (née Sarah), Jenny, of a problem and explain its complex Nadine, Aaron, Miriam, and Alexandra. results in a simple way, Meiron said. —JW Saffman even formed an unlikely collaboration with his neighbor, Rud-

44 ENGINEERING & SCIENCE Fall 2008