1- Cl) Cl) 1- 1- Cl) The campus community biweekly February 24, 2005, vol. 5, no. 4 Rain spells delays Ride launches festival Girls, let's do launch! That's the way one waggish Florida newspaper headlined a story on the Sally Ride Science Festival, which comes to Caltech on Saturday, March 19. As you might guess, the fes­ tival is the brainchild of Ride, America's first female astronaut, and is primarily intended for girls in grades five through eight, their parents, and educators. That age group is a critical time for girls and science, since it's the time when they Hefty telescope begin to drift away from their natural interests in science and math. That's a to float situation that Ride, the Ingrid and Joseph Assuming all goes well this April, a high­ Hibben Professor of Space Science and altitude balloon flight in New Mexico will professor of physics at UC San Diego, help to demonstrate whether an innovative has devoted a large part of her life to CALTECH telescope is ready to launch into space. reversing. PARKING If chosen by NASA. the telescope, Over the last few years Ride has orga­ ONLY called the Nuclear Spectroscopic Tele­ nized these festivals around the country, scope Array, or NuSTAR for short, should attracting hundreds of girls and parents be orbiting Earth by the end of the de­ for a day of science, socializing, and fun. cade, taking the first foeused high-energy Her company, Sally Ride Science, is dedi­ X-ray pictures of matter falling into black cated to creating events, programs, and Ytsrtor vehi.;les must be holes and shooting out of exploding registered U'T~rea ~s be die< see Sally Ride, page 6 stars. In addition, it will give scientists an ana or towea.cvc 22651 unprecedented look at the origins of the \leh<oie ""'9>SI<a!Jon 1S located at Secl.lrity heavy elements we're all made of. lio!iiston Parlong Strueturn The high-altitude balloon flight in r 370 S. HOlijston Alte /-"t;:;,.,.'t, - - - Professor helps New Mexico will help to demonstrate Cars sit in one of the two Holliston Avenue parking lots on campus that were recently closed. For a whether the advanced sensors invented few weeks, a shuttle will take commuters to their cars at CIP. Numb3rs add up and built at Caltech are ready for space. The balloon phase of the project sports The Caltech-caliber calculations seen in A parking shortfall resulting from the we're looking at 25-passenger vans," the intuitive acronym HEFT (for High­ Numb3rs, airing Fridays at 10 p.m. on February 22 closure of two campus lots Henderson says. "There'll be one pick­ Energy Focusing Telescope), and will CBS, are aided by professor and Caltech on Holliston Avenue prompted the Insti­ up and drop-off point at the corner of mark the first time that focused pictures alum Gary Lorden, BS '62, who serves as tute to open to Caltech staff members a Holliston and San Pasqua I Street, by the at high-energy X-ray wavelengths will 2 Numb3rs's mathematics advisor, and by parking lot at CIT , the former St. Luke JPL shuttle stop." have been returned from high altitudes. scenes actually shot at the Institute. Medical Center in northeast Pasadena, The shuttles are scheduled to run High-energy X rays tend to penetrate Numb3rs, which premiered Janu- and ferry them to the campus and back. every 15 minutes from 4:45a.m. to 9:30 the gas and dust of galaxies much bet­ ary 23, covers familiar TV crime-busting This measure to ease the parking a.m., and from 1:45 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the ter than the soft X rays observed by territory-foiling bioterrorism, outwit­ squeeze is being made in the midst of afternoon. This parking arrangement is NuSTAR's forerunners. In fact, even the ting bank robbers, stopping a serial rap­ several ongoing campus construction expected to last between four and six HEFT data from the balloon is expected ist-but with a twist: FBI Special Agent projects. These include the finishing weeks. to be superior to any data returned so far Don Eppes (Rob Morrow, of Northern touches on the new subterranean park­ "The loss on campus is 125 spaces from satellites at high X-ray energies. Exposure fame) enlists the help of his ing structure south of California Boule­ and that is how many will be available at see NuSTAR. page 6 brilliant younger brother, Charlie (David vard and prep work for modular housing CIT2 on a first-come, first-served basis." Krumholtz), a math professor, to solve units on the two Holliston lots in ad­ Television and film crews, who bring some of the bureau's most vexing cases. vance of the renovation of student hous­ their own parking needs along with their Week after week, viewers see how ing. The units will be used as temporary cameras, use the old St. Luke hospital Charlie uses actual mathematical meth­ Spitzer lifts the housing while the dormitories, known as site extensively. Doctor's offices on the ods to help crack tough cases. the South Houses, are modernized. premises also provide parking to em­ cosmic veil "It's a temporary thing. It's pending ployees and patients. see Numb3rs, page 2 the opening of the new parking struc­ "The concept is that every vehicle Where did we come from? Are we alone? ture," says Gregg Henderson, chief of that gets parked up there creates one These questions have driven scientific campus security and parking services space here," he adds. "A lot of discus­ inquiry for centuries, and frame the about parking at St. Luke. "We cannot sion went into what we're going to do agenda for modern astrophysical stud­ delay any of the commitments that have and we are working it as best as we ies. Since August 2003, astronomers been made concerning the modular can." have had a powerful new tool for delving structures." Preparations must be made The situation has come to this point, into these mysteries: the Spitzer Space before the arrival of 16 portable housing Henderson says, because of an unusu­ Telescope, developed and launched for units that will form an enclosed village ally wet winter that contributed to de­ NASA under the leadership of the Jet on the lots and on the lawn north of lays on the underground structure. The Propulsion Laboratory and now operated Avery House. top and sides of the three-level structure by Caltech's Spitzer Science Center. On The two lots just east of Avery House need to be filled in with dirt, which turns Wednesday, March 9, at 8 p.m., Michael are primarily used during the workweek. to mud when wet. Cameras, an elevator, Werner, the Spitzer project scientist at A shuttle service has been established and emergency phones are also being JPL, will discuss the Spitzer in his talk, between St. Luke and the campus. "We installed, and the structure-with its 700 Professor of Mathematics Gary Lorden shares a statistics equation he developed for the pilot of "Lifting the Cosmic Veil: The Infrared are anticipating using two shuttles and see Parking, page 6 Numb3rs. see Spitzer, page 6 2 Caltech 336, February 24, 2005 Numb3rs, from page 1 Meanwhile, an array of numbers, calculations, and equations scribbled on blackboards or overlaid through special NewsBriefs effects offers a glimpse into the mind of the math whiz who teaches at "Cal Sci"-the California School of Science and Technology. Caltech's imprint on Numb3rs is no accident. The show's creators-Pasadena residents Cheryl Heuton and Nicolas Falacci-approached the Institute last summer about shooting some scenes on campus, and for help in making the math as realistic as possible. That led the hus­ band-and-wife team to Lorden, Caltech's The Women's Center-whose staff includes, executive officer for mathematics, who left to right, Emery Johnson, administrative assistant; Candace Rypisi, director; and Jennifer was soon hired as a consultant. Cichocki, assistant director-hosts the campus "I was thrilled to see the show ap­ lactation room. proach Caltech," says Lorden. He finds it remarkable that in the finished product, Numb3rs depicts "math as not only inter­ Lactation room helps esting, but actually cool and sexy. It also does a good job of showing the reality working mothers of being stuck on problems, and working and suffering along the way to finding a When graduate student Christine Esber solution." Richardson returned to campus and her Lorden's job is to help the scripts program in solar energy research after credibly utilize bona fide mathematical having her baby, she wanted to continue techniques such as cryptography, combi­ breast-feeding. Caltech's lactation room In Vienna, the good Duke has been so lax in enforcing the laws that the citizenry in the Caltech Women's Center made it is in turmoil. In order to observe his subjects, he disguises himself as a friar natorics, number theory, and epidemiol­ possible. and leaves his deputy Angelo in his place to clean up the town and mete out ogy statistics in solving crimes. Besides punishment. Caught up in the plot of Measure for Measure are the lovers Claudio reviewing scripts for mathematical "We definitely knew that breast milk and Juliet, who bears Claudio's child. Here Claudio's sister Isabella, played by authenticity, he has also been asked to was best for the baby," says Esber Rich­ graduate student Tosin Otitoju, pleads with Angelo, Todd Brun, PhD '94, for her come up with math or physics concepts ardson, who pumped twice a day and brother's life.