O b i t u a r i e s An accomplished pianist, Beckman formed his own dance band in high school. He also accompanied the silent movies at the local theater. After being discharged from the Marines in 1919, he headed west for the summer as an itinerant movie-house pianist before entering college.

Inventor and philanthropist Leon Trotsky’s Red Army by research entity in the world , one place in line at the Brook- in its day. There Beckman PhD ’28, founder and presi- lyn Navy Yard. Thus he helped develop quality- dent of Beckman Instru- wound up eating Thanksgiv- assurance procedures for A RNOLD O . B ECKMAN ments, Inc., and chairman ing dinner at the Greenpoint the manufacture of Audion 1900 – 2004 emeritus of Caltech’s board YMCA, where 17-year-old vacuum tubes, which were of trustees, died in his sleep Mabel Meinzer helped serve used to amplify weak electri- on May 18 at Scripps Hospi- his table. It was love at first cal impulses for transconti- tal in after a long sight (they would be married nental telephone calls, and illness. He was 104. nearly 64 years), but despite learned about circuit design. Born on April 10, 1900, a voluminous correspondence, “If I’d never gone to Bell in rural Illinois, Beckman’s they would not get engaged Labs, I might not have life paralleled and helped until April 1923. developed any interest catalyze the transformation Instead, Beckman entered in ,” he said. of the from an the University of Illinois, Arnold married Mabel on agrarian society to an indus- from which he earned a BS in June 10, 1925, and in 1926 trial one. Running water and chemical engineering in 1922 the newlyweds returned to residential electricity did not and an MS in physical chemis- Pasadena after a six-week arrive in his boyhood town of try in 1923. There he learned cross-country journey by Cullom until his early teens. about electrochemistry and Model T, which he had A mechanically inclined the new ionic theory that modified for better hill son of a blacksmith, at age was redefining acidity, and climbing. In the days before nine Beckman stumbled mastered the art of glassblow- fuel pumps, the gasoline across a chemistry textbook in ing for experimental appara- couldn’t make it uphill from the attic and began doing the tus. He was accepted to the the tank to the engine on experiments. For his tenth doctoral programs at the steep slopes. Most motorists birthday his father gave him University of Chicago, MIT, dealt with this by driving up Beckman in an undated photo, the use of a backyard shed and Caltech, opting for the such grades in reverse, but circa 1945. that promptly became his “fabled country of California, Beckman fitted his gas cap . His high-school land of milk and honey and with a bicycle-tire valve, dream career was to be a oranges.” But by now Mabel allowing him to pressurize freelance chemist—have was an executive secretary at the tank with a hand pump beakers, will travel. He the Equitable Life Assurance when needed. would later recall, “I visual- Company in New York, and Now reenrolled at Caltech, ized having a trunk with he left Caltech after a year to Beckman did his PhD work apparatus—test tubes and get a job near her. on photolysis, chemicals—that I could take This proved to be at applying the newfangled anywhere and analyze ’s Engineer- quantum theory to chemical anything.” ing Department, which was reactions; he was asked to stay In August 1918 Beckman in the process of transforming on as an instructor. The joined the Marines, missing itself into Bell , following year he and his being shipped off to fight the premiere corporate thesis advisor, Roscoe

    ENGINEERING & SCIENCE NO . 2 35 A drawing (left) from the patent application for the pH meter. Beckman held 14 patents, including the shockproof (right).

handled more than three- which would give out an quarters of California’s citrus extremely tiny signal, to crop, had a problem of its be hooked to a rugged but own. Lemons that weren’t insensitive ammeter, and top grade were juiced to that the vacuum tubes he make pectin (for jellies), citric had worked with at acid, or other things, with the were just the ticket. He built juice’s acidity determining a gadget the size of a flour how it was processed. But canister that used a second the sulfur-dioxide preserva- to crank up the tive added to the juice output from the first one to bleached the litmus paper give a REALLY BIG signal, whose color change was just to be sure. It worked so usually used to measure well that Joseph never got to acidity, and poisoned the use it, as everyone else in the hydrogen electrodes used lab kept borrowing it. in the favored high-precision The acidimeter, or pH Dickinson (PhD ’20), built an Meter, needed a nonclogging electrochemical method of meter, was the first instru- instrument to determine the ink. Beckman found a work- the day. An alternative, the ment to package the chemist energy of ultraviolet light by able formulation, but it was so-called glass electrode, was in the box. No more assem- shining it on a thermocouple, based on butyric acid—the immune to SO2 but was big, bling complex apparatus and which turns heat into active ingredient in stinky with thin, fragile walls. To then spending months trying electricity, connected to a feet—and no ink company make matters worse, it gave to figure out its idiosyncra- galvanometer. By the early would touch it. So he a very weak signal, meaning sies. Now you just opened ’30s Beckman, now an decided to make it himself, you needed an ultrasensitive a door, stuck in your sample, assistant professor, had in the back of a garage on galvanometer that was itself and read off the result. become the go-to guy when an alley behind Colorado vulnerable to the slightest In 1935, Beckman’s the department’s instrument Boulevard that he rented jarring. And with either rechristened National builder, Fred Henson, was from Henson. Hiring two electrode, the whole tempera- Technical Laboratories (NTL) overbooked. At least par- Techers, Robert Barton (PhD mental setup, including rheo- began selling the acidimeter tially in self-defense, he ’33) and Henry Fracker (BS stat, rectifier, and reference through scientific-supply began teaching a course in ’30), and incorporating as cell, sprawled across several catalogs for $195—roughly laboratory glassblowing. He National Inking Appliance square feet of benchtop. a month’s salary for a junior fielded off-campus requests as Company, the firm also test- So chemist Glen Joseph professor—in competition well, leading him to set up a marketed his invention to took a day trip from the with 10-cent vials of litmus side business (with the reink typewriter ribbons. lemon lab in Ontario, some paper. But the unassembled blessing of Robert Millikan, This was not a success, as 30 miles east of Pasadena, components for a build-it- Caltech’s president, who had “the last things that secretar- to pick the brains of his old yourself electrochemical directed most of the inquirers ies wanted to do was get their classmate from the University setup cost about $500, so to him in the first place) as a fingers dirty with ink to save of Illinois. Beckman realized the acidimeter was really “scientific consultant.” the boss a 75-cent ribbon.” that an amplifier would allow half the price and none of One client, National Postal Meanwhile, Sunkist, which a small, stout glass electrode, the headaches.

36 ENGINEERING & SCIENCE NO . 2     Like IBM’s prediction in Beckman clowns with the the early ’50s that the world commemorative plastic brain given market for mainframe to him at a construction-site computers would never ceremony for the Beckman exceed six, “the most opti- mistic estimate I got was . . Behavioral Biology building on May . 600 over a 10-year period 8, 1972. He has an appreciative [would] saturate the market,” audience in Mabel Beckman, lower Beckman would say. But in right, and Caltech president Harold the first three months, NTL sold 87. A move to bigger Brown, center. The fence hides the quarters—a former dry- two-story-deep foundation cleaning shop three blocks excavation; Beckman Auditorium is away owned by chemistry professor Ernest Swift (MS in the background. ’20, PhD ’24) that actually fronted on Colorado Boule- vard—quickly followed. In 1939, Beckman left Caltech to run NTL full- time, and in 1940 the continuously measure the for the fine calibration of displaced.” Tens of millions company moved into a brand- amount of the substance Beckman’s pH meters were of these Helipots have been new 12,000-square-foot plant absorbing it. More than a factor of 10 better than sold since, with no end in in South Pasadena. 21,000 Model DU spectro- anything else available. sight. That same year, work began photometers would be sold A potentiometer is a variable Beckman wound up on an ultraviolet/visible from April 1942 until the resistor—as you turn the providing a second secret spectrophotometer inspired machine was discontinued knob, an electrical contact device for the Navy as well— by a Coleman Instruments in 1964, and a few of them slides along a C-shaped oxygen monitors for use on (now PerkinElmer) model are still in use today. resistive element, and the submarines, built to a design that itself used a slightly During World War II, DUs farther along the C it travels, by chemistry professor Linus modified version of NTL’s and infrared spectrophotom- the higher the resistance. Pauling (PhD ’25). These pH meter for data readout. eters, which NTL built in The NTL design got its became standard equipment Beckman, his chief design secret for the government’s extraordinary sensitivity in hospitals in 1955, when engineer, (BS synthetic-rubber project, by using a helical resistive doctors at Johns Hopkins ’30), and the NTL team played vital roles in the element. “Thus a 10-turn discovered that an outbreak of redesigned the instrument production of war materiel coil would provide 3,600 blindness in premature babies from scratch. They used a ranging from penicillin and degrees of rotation, whereas was being caused by excessive quartz prism for wavelength Vitamin A (essential to night a single-turn potentiometer oxygen—over 40 percent, selection rather than the usual vision) to aviation gasoline provided less than 360 versus air’s 21 percent—in glass one after discovering and TNT. degrees.” Rosenberg wanted their incubators. that glass doesn’t transmit While at a secret meeting to know if the Helipot, as it Air-quality issues of ultraviolet light well. (This in Detroit with members of was called, could be made to another sort began surfacing is why you can’t get a suntan the Office of Rubber Reserve, military specs. Beckman said as the basin behind a picture window.) Beckman got a phone call sure, only to soon discover a industrialized during the They blew their own ultravio- from a man named Rosenberg fatal flaw—any sudden jolt war—. From 1948 to let lamps and photocells, and who refused to identify would knock the spring- 1952, Beckman served as the put the readout dial on the himself further but wanted loaded contact off the coil, scientific consultant to the faceplate rather than leaving Beckman to fly to Cam- causing the radar to lose lock newly formed Los Angeles the user to wire the spectro- bridge, Massachusetts, right and need retuning. Espe- County Air Pollution Control photometer up to a separate away. Paul Rosenberg proved cially in a rumbling propel- District. It was widely pH meter. Again, all the to be a professor of physics at ler-driven airplane, it was assumed that sulfur dioxide expertise was in the box, MIT’s highly secret Radiation “absolutely worthless. . . . from coal-fired power plants, and with the twist of a knob Laboratory, where a British I began getting calls from oil refineries, and factories you could read out the entire invention called radar was the military, particularly from was to blame. But Beckman, chemical fingerprint of a being perfected. (The Lab the Navy: “Where are the who knew SO2 when he sample, identifying its was headed by physicist Lee Helipots? We have ships smelled it, was not persuaded. components—a set of DuBridge, who would later ready to go. . . . One sleep- And Arie Haagen-Smit, measurements that might become Caltech’s president.) less night I conceived of a another Caltech chemistry have previously taken hours Many components in a radar design using a solid rotor in professor, had been doing or even days. Or, by parking set need to be precisely tuned, a groove; the contact would studies that implicated ozone. on a single characteristic and Rosenberg had discovered slide up and down in the So Beckman designed a wavelength, you could that the used groove so it couldn’t get program to collect air samples

    ENGINEERING & SCIENCE NO . 2 37 basinwide, from which Beckman Auditorium, the Haagen-Smit extracted a few Mabel and Arnold Beckman drops of “smelly brown stuff.” Laboratories of Behavioral After identifying the material Biology, the Arnold and as a mix of toxic, highly Mabel Beckman Laboratory reactive organic peroxides, of Chemical Synthesis, and Haagen-Smit was able to the Beckman Institute. In trace them back to their recognition of these and source: a complex web of numerous other contribu- reactions between auto tions, in 1981 Caltech’s exhaust, sunlight, nitrogen trustees and other donors oxides, and ozone. Beckman established the Arnold O. then helped develop the Beckman Professorship in county’s pollution-control Chemistry, held by longtime regulations and smog-alert friend and founding director procedures. (And, inciden- of the Beckman Institute W ILLIAM D REYER tally, started a new line of Harry Gray. 1928 – 2004 business, up to and including Other notable gifts include mobile air-quality labs.) $40 million to fund an inter- As scientists returned to disciplinary research institute civilian work, the pace of at the University of Illinois; research and development $20 million to create a quickened, and Beckman conference center in Irvine, Instruments (NTL changed California, for the National its name when it went public Academy of Sciences; and in 1950) became a fixture in $14.5 million to improve K- every lab. The company 6 science education in Orange began acquiring other firms County, California, where the with compatible products, Beckmans had lived since the such as centrifuges and early ’60s. biomedical instruments, and Besides honors and awards continued to develop its own too numerous to mention, wares at a breakneck pace. In Beckman was named to the some years in the early ’60s, National Inventors Hall of Beckman Instruments Fame in 1987. He received launched an average of the National Medal of one new product a week. Technology in 1988 and Beckman retained close the National Medal of Science Bill Dreyer, in 1973, analyzes two ties to Caltech, being elected in 1989. Dr. William J. Dreyer, to the Board of Trustees in He is survived by his scanning electron micrographs: of a professor of biology since 1953, and becoming its chair children, G. Patricia normal blood cell and of polymeric 1963, died April 23 after a in 1964—the first alumnus Beckman of Corona del Mar, spheres coated with antibodies long illness. He was 75. to hold that position, which and Arnold S. Beckman of that will react only with specific A native of Kalamazoo, he did until 1974, when he Asotin, Washington. ■—DS Michigan, Dreyer earned his was voted a Life Trustee. substances on the blood cell’s bachelor’s degree at Reed He stepped down as surface. Dreyer was trying to College and his doctorate in president of Beckman Beckman’s quotes published develop molecules that would biochemistry at the Univer- E&S Instruments at 65, “the age here are drawn from past attack certain types of cancer cells, sity of Washington in 1956. of statutory senility,” staying articles and from Arnold O. After his graduation he on as chairman of the board Beckman: One Hundred work that grew out of his research worked for six years as a while he and Mabel embarked Years of Excellence by Arnold on normal cells’ surface research biochemist at the on an ambitious campaign to Thackray and Minor Myers, jr., recognition codes. National Heart Institute and give away their entire fortune Chemical Heritage Foundation, National Institute of Arthri- to causes they believed in—in 2000. tis and Metabolic Disease particular, basic scientific before joining the faculty at research. By the time of Caltech, where he remained Mabel’s death in 1989, they the rest of his life. had donated $200 million; to Dreyer was perhaps best date, the Beckmans and their known for his suggestion in foundation have distributed the 1960s that genes could be some $400 million. Major “reshuffled” to provide addi- gifts to Caltech include the tional information for the

38 ENGINEERING & SCIENCE NO . 2     formation of proteins. At first a controversial idea, the theory later came into prom- inence after it was experimen- tally demonstrated by others, Quarterback and captain-elect Sharp including , who at one time was Dreyer’s catches a pass for the 1933 Big T. student. At a Society for Biomolec- ular Screening conference held in 2003, Hood credited Dreyer for mentoring his early career, teaching him the art of conceptual thinking, and providing him with “a wonderful introduction to the R OBERT P HILLIP S HARP exhilaration of rapidly paced 1911 – 2004 molecular immunology.” Hood added that Dreyer always emphasized two prin- ciples: “Always practice Dreyer is remembered by Robert P. Sharp, the Robert physically active all his life, biology at the leading edge,” his many former students as P. Sharp Professor of Geology, jogging, hiking (preferably to and “If you really want to having taught them to look Emeritus, died peacefully at a mountain stream for some change biology, develop a at data with a fresh eye, his home in Santa Barbara on trout fishing), and skiing new technology for pushing rather than through the filter May 25. He was 92. (which he took up at 55). back the frontiers of biologi- of current scientific dogma, The eldest son of Oxnard After a BS in 1934 and an cal knowledge.” and for having infected them fruit growers Julian and Alice MS in 1935, he moved to Dreyer also investigated with his love of science. Sharp, he came to Caltech in Harvard for a doctorate in fundamental questions related He is survived by his wife 1930 with vague thoughts of geology (1938), and found to how embryos develop, and and colleague, Dr. Janet becoming a civil engineer, the going easier than the he made significant contribu- Roman, and three daughters. but changed his mind when other grad students after tions to the field of biological ■ he took the core geology “being worked like a dog” at instrumentation. course in his sophomore year. Caltech. While there, he met He was the author of nu- “I had hardly ever heard the and married another geologist, merous journal articles and word geology before that Radcliffe graduate student also held a number of patents time,” he later recalled, “but Jean Todd, and they were —including one for an im- this course hit me just right. together for 62 years until munological reagant and Bingo! So I elected to give Jean’s death in 2000. After radioimmunoassay, and two geology a try.” He wasn’t five years in the geology for polyacrylate beads that sure, though, that he would be department of the University he developed with two able to make a living from it. of Illinois, he was called to colleagues. Sharp played quarterback wartime service with the U.S. Dreyer had been an avid for the Caltech football team Army Air Forces from ’43 to pilot since 1960 and often for three years, thrilled to be ’45, working in the Arctic, flew to Baja California, able to compete against teams Desert, and Tropic Informa- various archaeological sites like UCLA at the Coliseum tion Center and rising to the in the western United States, (Caltech didn’t win, but gave rank of captain. After two and to remote regions in UCLA a good run for their years on the faculty of the British Columbia. He once money) and to have the Rose University of Minnesota, he said that his taste for flying Bowl as home field. When a came back to Caltech in 1947 his Cessna P210 at altitudes 1958 issue of Sports Illustrated as a professor of geomorphol- of 15,000 feet—high for a named him one of 25 “Men of ogy and was appointed small privately owned prop Achievement” who had been division chair in 1952, after plane but low for commercial undergraduate football stars, the untimely death of aircraft—was “an allegory for he told the reporter, “I think Professor of Paleontology my tastes in scientific re- most young scientists need Chester Stock. He was chair search. I like to work where what you get from football— of the Division of Geological research isn’t too competitive the news that you have got Sciences, as it was then called, and crowded—to move to be determined as hell and until 1968, during which beyond the current mob that there is a certain poise time he introduced several scene, even if the place where and aggressiveness that is new, and groundbreaking, I end up is lonely.” desirable.” He remained academic programs. (He can

    ENGINEERING & SCIENCE NO . 2 39 also be credited with putting To modernize seismology, man at his wedding. Andrew the P into GPS, though the Sharp recruited geophysicist Ingersoll, the Anthony official name change to the Frank Press in 1955 and Professor of Planetary Science, Division of Geological and raised the money to move the who arrived in 1966, still Planetary Sciences didn’t seismological laboratory from remembers Sharp’s welcome: happen until 1971.) a cramped house in the San “He said to me ‘My job is to “The most important thing Rafael hills to a beautiful give you every opportunity to he did was to hire real talent mansion on the other side of be as productive as you can,’ in the new areas of geochem- the road. Later, he used all and I thought, ‘Wow! What istry, planetary sciences, and his persuasive powers to bring a great place to come to.’ geophysics,” said Lee Silver the seismo lab downhill onto He was a great leader, and (PhD ’55), Keck Foundation the campus. supportive of everyone in the Professor for Resource Sharp didn’t need to division.” Geology, Emeritus. “He persuade the astronomers to The 1965 Mariner IV flyby knew that bringing in let the geology division move of Mars gave Sharp the chance chemists and physicists and into the field of planetary to do planetary science as well. blending them into the science in 1963. They were Mariner IV was the first division would make a very making great discoveries on spacecraft to carry a digital rich and productive assembly the new Hale telescope at TV camera, built by physics of faculty, and it quickly Palomar, and were quite professor Robert Leighton became a multidisciplinary happy to leave the planets to (BS ’41, MS ’44, PhD ’47) division.” the geologists. Bruce Murray and Murray. They brought in “All three of these areas became Caltech’s first faculty Sharp to help them interpret, were very mathematical,” member in planetary science “for thousands of home TV added Bruce Murray, profes- (he would later become viewers” as E&S wrote at the sor of planetary science and director of JPL). Murray time, the first-ever close-up geology, emeritus. “Sharp became, like so many others images of the red planet was not a quantitative man, in the division, a close personal beamed back to Earth. The yet his foresight and ability friend, and Sharp was best trio also worked on Mariners to push this through were extraordinary.” Unable to find a vertebrate paleontologist to succeed Stock, Sharp decided to give this area of research a lower priority. “Bob sold all the division’s vertebrate fossils to the L. A. County Museum of Natural History,” recalled Silver, “and used the $100,000 raised to build geochemistry labs. It was the first geology department in the world to go in that direction.” “It was a radical change,” said Murray. The skepticism it generated came as a shock to Sharp, who later recalled, “I would go to national geo- logical meetings and geolo- gists would come up and hiss in my face, ‘How’s the depart- ment of geochemistry at Caltech?’ I used to say, ‘Just be patient and give us time.’” Of course, he turned out to be right, said Silver. Bringing in geochemists Harrison Brown, Clair Patterson, and Sam Epstein made Caltech the wellspring for the use of isotopes in geology.

40 ENGINEERING & SCIENCE NO . 2     Jean joined Bob on the third Grand Canyon trip to raise money for the division’s first endowed chair.

VI, VII, and IX, and “had a because he could study glaciers many unsuspecting students Geology. The division’s first ball.” In a 1991 Pasadena in winter and sand dunes into the lifetime study of endowed chair, it was funded Star-News article, Sharp closer to home in summer. geology.” in a very imaginative way. recalled how one of the Sharp’s scientific contribu- Bill Tivol (BS ’62), who Delayed at an airport in Mariner technicians had told tions garnered many honors, today manages the electron Houston by engine trouble, him that the latest images including the Geological microscopy facility in the Lee Silver and Gene Shoe- from Mars revealed the Society of America’s Kirk Broad Center for the Biologi- maker (BS ’47, MS ’48) came presence of a lake. Looking Bryan Award in 1964 and its cal Sciences, recalls that when up with the idea of taking at the images, he saw that the highest honor, the Penrose he took the Ge 1 “culture Caltech benefactors on guided rippling features the techni- Medal, in 1979. He was course,” Sharp made a bet raft trips through the Grand cian had seen were actually elected to the National with the class that if there Canyon at $50,000 a head sand dunes. “That was the Academy of Sciences in 1973, was a volcanic eruption that ($75,000 for a couple) until beauty of it for me,” he said. and awarded America’s highest year, the students were to buy they’d raised the necessary $1 “Astrophysicists, engineers, scientific honor, the National him a beer, and, if not, he’d million. The idea was and computer guys, and they Medal of Science, in 1989. buy a beer for each of them. enthusiastically embraced by need this dumb ol’, dirty He donated the medal to the “Not only did he win the division chair Barclay Kamb fingernail geologist like me!” division, and it is now on bet—and get presented with (BS ’52, PhD ’56, the Rawn As well as running the display in the Robert P. Sharp a beer in class—but he Professor of Geology and division, teaching, and fund- lecture theater. continued to win every year Geophysics, Emeritus) and raising, Sharp found time for Sharp’s take on teaching since,” said Tivol. “This was Sharp, and the four of them “creative, original research,” made him very popular with his very memorable way to led these popular trips (with said Silver. “He was one of students: “I try to tell them point out that something we suitably luxurious campsites the most highly respected something about the environ- think of as rare is really quite and meals) for the next three geologists in the world.” His ment that creates interest,” he a common geological event, years. President Marvin work included investigations told the Claremont Courier in globally.” Goldberger and his wife, of basin and range structure, 1989. “We don’t teach right Sharp’s former students Mildred, went along on the continental basin deposits, when we give students a mass may also remember their third expedition, and one mountain and continental of facts and tell them that teacher’s penchant for evening toward the end of the glaciation, glacial-lake shore- they may need them later. punctuality. In a 1973 issue trip, Goldberger announced lines, frozen ground, erosion What we should do is create of Caltech News, one of them that all the money had been surfaces, desert sand dunes, the interest and then make observed, “When he says a raised and the new chair oxygen and hydrogen isotopes them do the nasty intellectual caravan will leave the campus would be named in Sharp’s in snow and glacier ice, surface exercises later.” After just for a field trip at 8 a.m., he honor. Dumbstruck at the forms and processes on Mars, three years at Caltech, he was means 8:00 and not 8:05. time, Sharp later recalled: “It and even the mysterious hailed by Life magazine as one He’s been known to drive out was a beautiful place for the sliding stones of Death of the 10 great U.S. college of the parking lot and leave announcement. Right on the Valley’s Racetrack Playa. He teachers of 1950. “Sharp’s stragglers standing on the river. Beautiful evening. In preferred “today’s geology,” enthusiasm is contagious, and steps.” On one memorable camp. And a satellite went things that could be measured, his sophomore geology course occasion, he even set off over.” He always felt it was like glaciation and sand is one of the favorites on the without a trustee. one of the nicest things that dunes. This was a smart Caltech schedule,” Life wrote, In 1978, he became the ever happened to him. combination, remarked Silver, “credited with attracting Robert P. Sharp Professor of Sharp loved taking people

    ENGINEERING & SCIENCE NO . 2 41 on field trips, feeling that To ensure it could continue “you have to bring them into after his death, he established the fold by taking them out an endowment with his own to have a look at nature.” He pledge and those of others. felt sorry for the division’s He and his wife, Jean, also secretaries and lab technicians gifted a partial remainder because they were always left interest in their Santa Barbara behind when the faculty and home to the Institute. students went off. So in a Sharp became a professor gesture typical of his consid- emeritus in 1979 but eration for others, he organized continued to teach a class at and led an annual staff Caltech—staying in touch geological excursion. Every with young people was what year for seven years he took kept him going, he said—and the division staff on day trips to lead field trips. He also to the San Gabriels, or two- wrote popular geology books, E DWARD E . S IMMONS J R . day trips to Owens Valley, including Geology: Field Guide 1911 – 2004 and sometimes even three-day to Southern California and his trips to Hawaii. humor-tinged collection of He also started the popular vignettes on sites of geologi- Alumni Association travel cal interest, Geology Underfoot Edward E. Simmons Jr. (BS program. Arlana Silver, who in Southern California and ’34, MS ’36) died May 18 of currently heads the Caltech Geology Underfoot in Death complications from cancer Associates and worked with Valley and Owens Valley (both surgery. He was 93. Sharp on these programs for written with Allen Glazner). In his quasi-medieval garb many years as associate and The latter two are now in (which he had adopted as per- then deputy director of the their fourth printing, and fectly practical for Southern Alumni Association, recalled have a wide and appreciative California), Simmons was a that he took alumni to places readership. He had almost familiar figure around Pasa- such as Alaska, Hawaii, finished another Geology dena, particularly on the Yellowstone and Glacier Underfoot book on Idaho, Caltech campus, where for National Parks, and the which will be completed by decades he attended all American Southwest until he its two coauthors. seminars and lectures that was well into his eighties. Sharp is survived by two interested him—and just “Other faculty members have children, Kristin Lytle and about everything did. He joined in with their own trips Bruce Sharp, two grandchil- considered Caltech “a suitable now,” she said, “but Bob was dren, Lenore and Mathew local amusement park.” the one who set the pattern. Lytle, and many generations Simmons was born in Los He had a great rapport with of fond students and col- Angeles and grew up in the the alumni, and the people leagues. A memorial service Pasadena area, where both who traveled with him once is planned for the fall. he and his brother Robert wanted to travel with him Those wishing to make a attended Caltech at the same again. In fact, so many contribution to Caltech in his time. Both were outdoors people wanted to go on each memory should write to enthusiasts; Robert, who be- trip that they were commonly Robert P. Sharp Ventures in came known for innovations wait-listed, and the trips had Earth Sciences Fund, GPS in surfboard design and con- to be repeated.” Division, attention Marcia struction, died in a surfing Project Pahoehoe, an eight- Hudson, Mail Code 170-25, accident in the early ’40s. day spring break to Hawaii Pasadena, CA 91125, making While constructing elec- for the division’s graduating checks payable to Caltech trical equipment (in his own seniors and doctoral candi- with a notation earmarking garage) for Assistant Professor dates, was another of his the gift for the memorial of Mechanical Engineering innovations. It wasn’t the fund. ■—BE Donald S. Clark’s Impact traditional kind of spring Research Lab in 1938, Ed break on the beach, however. Simmons invented the strain Sharp wanted the students to gauge, an instrument consist- learn about hot-spot volcan- ing of a tiny wire connected ism, and he worked them to a device that measured the hard. The project had to be change in electrical resistance funded from year to year by when strain stretched the donations, and he put a lot of wire. It was simple, elegant, effort into raising the money. and cheap, and quickly proved

42 ENGINEERING & SCIENCE NO . 2     indispensable to the wartime patents for “inventions made aircraft industry. The in the line of Institute duty.” Faculty File postage-stamp-sized strain In 1944 Simmons was gauge could be plastered all awarded the Edward Long- over a prototype airplane streth Medal of the Franklin wing and is credited by some Institute of Philadelphia. At as the greatest contribution the awards ceremony, he sat to the efficient structure of next to Harlow Shapley, the American aircraft during famous Harvard astronomer. World War II. The strain Shapley was dressed in white gauge eventually spun off a tie and tails; Simmons wore multi-billion-dollar industry his tennis clothes. when it also found applica- At a memorial service on tion in bridges, buildings, May 24, longtime friends machinery, and any kind of fondly recalled Simmons’s structure that undergoes unique genius and eccentric- stress. Today it’s an essential ity, his passion for experi- H ONORS AND A WARDS component of electronic ment, and his love of collect- weighing equipment, and ing used equipment (some- in his last years Simmons times very large used equip- was fond of presenting bath- ment). Despite his lack of Jacqueline Barton, the Mory Gharib, the Liep- room scales to baffled recipi- social skills (he couldn’t bring Hanisch Memorial Professor mann Professor of Aeronau- ents as a reminder of his himself to shake hands and and professor of chemistry, tics and Bioengineering, has achievement. was unable to recognize dif- has been awarded a grant of been selected by the Tech- When Caltech claimed the ferences in emotion in others), $50,000 for two years by the nion, Israel Institute of patent, Simmons sued; he he was kind, gentle, and gen- National Foundation for Technology, for its 2004–05 fought his case all the way to erous. He didn’t just think Cancer Research. Pollak Distinguished Lecturer the California Supreme Court, outside the box, said the Rev. , the Award. which finally ruled in his Stanley Hirtle. “He was Boswell Professor of Neuro- Three of the latest Presi- favor in 1949. The case in- outside the box.” science, Emeritus, has been dential Early Career Awards spired the board of trustees to Simmons was buried near awarded the inaugural 2004 for Scientists and Engineers adopt a resolution requiring his parents and siblings at Neuroscience Prize of the have gone to members of of employees a written agree- Mountain View Cemetery. Peter Gruber Foundation for the Caltech faculty: Babak ment assigning to Caltech all ■ —JD his innovative and pioneering Hassibi, associate professor of contributions to neuroscience. electrical engineering; Mark This year’s recipients of the Simons, associate professor of ASCIT Teaching Awards are geophysics; and Brian Stoltz, Colin Camerer, the Axline assistant professor of chemis- Professor of Business Eco- try. The award recognizes nomics; K. Mani Chandy, outstanding young profes- the Ramo Professor and pro- sionals at the outset of their fessor of computer science; independent research careers. Alan Hajek, associate pro- Peter Goldreich, the fessor of philosophy; Kayoko DuBridge Professor of Hirata, lecturer in Japanese; Astrophysics and Planetary and Feng-Ying Ming, lec- Physics, Emeritus, has been turer in Chinese. elected a Foreign Member of Sunney Chan, the Hoag the Royal Society, which cited Professor of Biophysical him and his close collabora- Chemistry, Emeritus, has tors for “several seminal received the William C. Rose contributions to an unparal- Award of the American leled range of topics in Society for Biochemistry and planetary science and theo- Simmons was a conspicuous presence in the audience of many, if not most, Molecular Biology/Interna- retical astrophysics, including of Caltech’s public lectures and seminars. Here, in Baxter Lecture Hall, he’s tional Union of Biochemistry spiral arms in galaxies and warmly greeted by Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko in March 1992. and Molecular Biology. The planetary rings and the award recognizes “his out- explanation of white dwarf standing contributions to bio- oscillations.” chemical and molecular bio- Hiroo Kanamori, the logical research and his dem- Smits Professor of Geophys- onstrated commitment to the ics, has been selected as a training of younger scientists.” recipient of the 2004 Japan

    ENGINEERING & SCIENCE NO . 2 43