In This Issue
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The California Tech Volume CXViii number 22 Pasadena, California [email protected] aPril 13, 2015 Undergraduates Jermyn, Tschirhart awarded Hertz fellowships DOUGLAS SMITH flow can tax the capacity of a forming a turbulent tendril of gas Tschirhart and Jermyn share diverse as lubricating hard drives Caltech Media Relations supercomputer. that winds in an ever-tightening an interest in fluid mechanics. and extracting crude oil from Jermyn’s senior thesis models spiral around the pulsar as the “I think the biggest difference porous rocks. This article was originally how a pulsar — a between what Adam Both students took Ph 011, a published online at caltech.edu. type of celestial and I do is that he is course taught by the late Professor radio source that a theorist, and I am Thomas Tombrello. Tombrello Caltech seniors Adam Jermyn flashes as fast an experimentalist,” launched this class in 1989 to and Charles Tschirhart have been as a thousand Tschirhart said. encourage freshme0n to think named 2015 Hertz Fellowship times per second “Physicists pretend that creatively, and taught it annually winners. Selected from a pool of — disrupts the a fluid is a continuum until his death in September 2014. approximately 800 applicants, the atmosphere of of infinitely divisible This year, Jermyn and Tschirhart awardees will receive up to five a companion matter and thus doesn’t are helping teach it. “Ph 011 really years of support for their graduate star. Pulsars are have any ‘graininess’ to shaped the way I ask questions, studies. According to the Hertz neutron stars it.” But because atoms and I have Tom Tombrello to thank Foundation, fellows are chosen for — supernova and molecules do have for that,” Jermyn said. their intellect, their ingenuity and cinders that pack finite sizes, “once you “He pushed us to think about their potential to bring meaningful the mass of a get down to small things obliquely,” Tschirhart said. improvement to society. Jermyn couple of suns enough scales,” he said, “After I got over my initial nerves, and Tschirhart bring the number into a sphere “even water becomes I found myself enjoying [the two (From left) Charles Tschirhart and Adam Jermyn won Hertz fellow- of Caltech undergraduate Hertz roughly the size of ships, which will support them during their graduate studies. ‘grainy.’” The fluid rounds of Hertz interviews], which fellows to 60. Manhattan. The Photo Courtesy of Lance Hayashida becomes more viscous, made it much easier to answer the Jermyn, a physics major from spin imparted by as it takes effort to force questions creatively.” Longmeadow, Massachusetts, the supernova’s explosion and stolen material accretes onto its the grains past one another. Both plan to defer their Hertz works with so-called “emergent equally violent collapse creates a surface. For his senior thesis, Tschirhart doctoral fellowships while they phenomena,” which “is a broad beam of tightly focused radio waves. Tschirhart of Naperville, determined the nanoviscosity take advanced degrees in England. term referring to situations If a neutron star were “aimed” Illinois, is a double major in of silicone oil by measuring the Tschirhart will be attending the where we know all of the laws on at Earth, the beam’s fleeting applied physics and chemistry. thickness of a thin film of oil, University of Nottingham as a a fundamental level but where illumination would register as a His interests lie at the opposite smearing it even thinner with a Fulbright Scholar for one year, there are so many pieces working flash in our radio telescopes every end of the scale — in the world of stream of air and measuring its where he plans to develop new together that the consequences time it swept across us. Meanwhile, nanotechnology, where lengths thickness again. The thickness applications for atomic force aren’t known,” he said. For example, the pulsar’s intense gravity distorts are measured in nanometers, should decrease in a linear manner, microscopy, a powerful technique the basic laws governing fluid the companion star, creating a or billionths of a meter. In the but this doesn’t happen when the for “photographing” nanoscale mechanics are simple equations bulge on its surface. Like Earth’s summer of 2012, he was part of a layer gets thin enough. “These objects. Jermyn will be at the that relate such easily measured moon, the star’s rotation is tidally team that built nanoelectrodes — films aren’t much thicker than the University of Cambridge for quantities as density, velocity and locked, always presenting the same tiny silicon needles that penetrate a size of a molecule,” he said. “This two years as a Marshall Scholar temperature to one another, but side to its dominant neighbor. The cell wall without damaging the cell is where non-continuum effects investigating the processes by simulating the behavior of two companion star’s atmosphere gets to monitor the electrical activity show up.” These effects could affect which planets form around binary gases as they mix in a turbulent siphoned away, layer by layer, within. how engineers approach tasks as star systems. Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev found guilty CASEY HANDMER remotely near the marathon finish Hasan) and a few others, it seems implicated Tamerlan Tsarnaev in, wont to say, engineering security is Contributing Writer line 13 seconds apart. The brothers hints arising from the Tsarnaev a triple homicide that occurred in nontrivial. Two concrete examples evaded capture until a shooting on brothers’ not exactly stealthy Waltham, Massachusetts, on Sept. surrounding the bombing illustrate On April 6, surviving Boston April 18, 2013, followed by a final activities were either ignored or not 11, 2011. No further evidence has this. Marathon bomber Dzhokhar manhunt on April 19, 2013, four connected. Indeed, it was revealed emerged, however. In the first, some members of Tsarnaev was found guilty of all days after the bombing. that Russian intelligence services The number of Americans the online community reddit tried 30 counts, 17 of which may carry Dzhokhar Tsarnaev survived to had even warned the FBI about the killed and injured during terrorist to analyze social media to discover the death penalty. Nearly two years be captured, and was immediately Tsarnaev brothers. There is now an attacks over the last 30 years the identity of the bombers, since the April 15, 2013, bombing questioned for 16 hours. alarming disconnect between two pales in comparison and subsequent manhunt, which Subsequently read his Miranda types of home-grown terror attacks. to those killed in “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s ultimate injured 280 and killed four, debate rights, the admissibility of prior In the first, a handful of disaffected vehicle accidents, rages over motive, law enforcement testimony is a matter of controversy. American citizens have successfully home shootings, fate, execution or life in prison, procedure, intelligence failures Despite a call for him to be tried as advanced plots to execution, often police shootings, rests on proving that Tamer- and the prospect of state execution. an enemy combatant, prominent harming or even killing American food poisonings, lan Tsarnaev was the prime legal scholars including Alan civilians. In the second, dozens of lightning strikes, actor and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Dershowitz successfully argued plots funded and instigated by paid livestock accidents, a partially-willing follower...” survived to be cap- that doing so would jeopardize the FBI informants have successfully as soldiers fighting case against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, entrapped financially desperate overseas, etc. The tured and was imme- as it has for many remaining and/or mentally ill men in hastily heightened violence diately questioned for Guantanamo Bay inmates, and the written anti-terrorism legislation. and mayhem combined with our possibly contributing to the suicide 16 hours.” federal court system was judged Naturally these “plots,” which free and open press serve to greatly of an ultimately innocent suspect. sufficient to handle Dzhokhar are actually exploiting society’s amplify the terror and horror, The court of public opinion poses a Tsarnaev’s case. weakest members for PR and pose which is precisely why violent real risk to the application of justice Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and his Immediately following the no threat to security, have been extremist attacks against civilians even as well-meaning participants elder brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, bombing, questions about handling disrupted “in the nick of time.” are so effective. try to leverage new technology. both ethnically Chechen Muslims, of intelligence were raised in In the investigation after the How our society responds In the second, parts of Boston autonomously built pressure the media. As in the cases of the Boston marathon bombings, to brazen but ultimately futile were put under lockdown for cooker bombs and planned the underwear bomber (Umar Farouk the FBI shot and killed Ibragim attacks such as these is largely almost the entirety of April 19, attack using al-Qaeda in the Abdulmutallab), the shoe bomber Todashev, a friend of the Tsarnaev an open question, as information 2013. It’s far from clear that such Arabian Peninsula’s online English (Richard Reid), the Times Square brothers, during an interrogation technology continues to redefine extreme action assisted the language glossy magazine Inspire. bomber (Faisal Shahzad), the 2009 in Florida. It has been suggested our systems of communication and The two bombs were detonated Fort Hood shooter (Nidal Malik that Ibragim confessed to, and interaction. As Bruce Schneier is Continued on page 3 news | Page 2 OPInIOn | Page 3 FEATURe | Page 4 sPORts | Page 5 In thIs u.s. and IRan In 12-teRm tuItIOn kshItIj descRIbes wOmen’s wateR mIdst OF new dI- POlIcy RevIsIted caltech lIFe In RaP POlO seasOn cOmes Issue PlOmacy deal lyRIcs tO a clOse news 2 aPril 13, 2015 the calIFORnIa tech Caltech Y Column: News & Events “The Great Satan” gives CALTECH Y LA River.