Volume 18, No.1, February 1984 CALTECH NEWS astronomers have theorized that Students take over matter is flowing into a black hole the Rose Bowl­ with the mass of millions of suns, and that this flow is the source of scoreboard, that is! power for the energetic events in the center of the galaxy. Legends of Cal tech is sold out in "If these theories are correct, then its first printing-and already out of this picture represents the first time date. Cal tech students saw to that on that we are actually seeing matter January 2 when they seized control falling into a black hole. Our galactic of the Rose Bowl scoreboard during center presents the best view of such the game, printing out pro-Caltech an event that we will have, because messages and, with 9:26 to go in the the nearest external galactic center is 4th quarter, substituting the names of about 70 times farther away than . Caltech and MIT for UCLA and . our own." Illinois: Cal tech 38, MIT 9. While their current observations Earlier, the students flashed other allow them to map the ionized gas in messages on the board, including the galactic center, Lo said he and his "Go CIT," "DEC" and a matrix pic­ colleagues will have to make obser­ ture of an arrow pointing to two vations at shorter wavelengths to beavers- but none of these attracted map the structure of the neutral gas much attention on the part of sports that is there. announcers or persons in the crowd. "This information will help us Later, the pranksters planned to understand more' about the origin of substitute "1984 Beaver Bowl" for the gas falling into the galactic cen­ "1984 Rose Bowl," but were stymied ter," he said. "We plan to study the when the scoreboard was turned off center as soon as possible with with four minutes left in the game. This computer picture of the ga lactic center was made from a radio map by K. Y Lo and Mark ]. Cal tech's new millimeter-wave inter­ Ted Williams, a senior in applied ferometric array." physics from Lloyd House, and Dan Claussen of Ca ltech. The picture shows spiral arms of gas, perhaps representing matter plunging into a black hole. The array of telescopes at the Kegel, a senior in engineering from Institute's Owens Valley Radio Ob­ Blacker House, were leaders of the servatory consists of three high­ project. They began work on it 15 Caltech astronomers obtain precision dishes capable of detailed months ago with plans to use it in the highest-resolution photo mapping of the millimeter-wave­ 1983 Super Bowl, but were not done length emissions from molecules in in time. of galaxy nucleus space. Even better pictures of the The technology consisted of a galactic center will be obtainable with microprocessor unit planted in the By scanning radio waves emanat­ They used the Very Large Array the Very Long Baseline Array, a control system of the scoreboard, ing from the center of our galaxy, (VLA) in New Mexico. The VLA is a national array of ten radio telescopes and linked to another microprocessor two Cal tech astronomers have pro­ facility of the National Radio As­ that has been proposed as a major by radio. The students operated the duced the highest resolution picture tronomy Observatory, which is effort in radio astronomy over the scoreboard from a hill overlooking yet obtained of the galactic nucleus. operated by the Associated Universi­ next decade. The VLBA will allow the Rose Bowl, some two miles away. The picture clearly shows spiral arms ties, Inc., under contract with NSF. pictures of the center with 100 times They would have liked to be in­ of gas, perhaps representing matter in The resulting map, which covered better resolution than was previously side, but lacked tickets to the game. the act of plunging into a gigantic the central three parsecs (about ten possible. Jim Muldoon, media director of black hole that scientists theorize light years) of the galaxy, showed Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a the Rose Bowl game, said the stu­ resides there. three spiral arms of ionized gas spiral-shaped disk of a hundred dents' prank blew the circuitry on the Assistant Professor of Radio As­ radiating outward from the center. trillion stars, some 100,000 light system, plunging it into darkness tronomy K. Y. Lo and Research The arms appear to be composed of years across and 2,000 light years Continued on page 2 Fellow Mark J. Claussen, who a series of large clumps of matter, thick. Our solar system lies about published their results in the Decem­ strung out in space. The map reveals 30,000 light years from the center. ber 15 issue of Nature, made their the details of the spiral arms for the map by scanning the galactic center first time. at a wavelength of six centimeters. "Although the general velocities of gas around the galactic center have been known for several years, this new map allows us to make more sense out of them," said Lo . The most natural interpretation is that we are seeing gas falling into a deep gravita­ tional potential in the center. Many Students take over Technology and Gordon Moore Lee Weingarten the Rose Bowl shoelaces: the named to Caltech Alumni Association Continued from page 1 Los Angeles Times Board of Trustees executive director during the final fo ur minutes of the game. But Williams said this couldn't looks at Bowl fete Gordon E. Moore (PhD '54), Lee S. Weingarten has been ap­ have happened because the micro­ chairman and chief executive officer pointed executive director of the This editorial from the Los Angeles processor installed in the bowl was of Intel Corporation and a pioneer in Alumni Association. She succeeds Times on January 4 is reprinted with still operating and accepting the semiconductor industry, has been Phyllis Jelinek, who retired from that permission. Copyright 1984. instructions. named to the Board of Trustees of position after the birth of her daugh­ In developing the prank, the perpe­ Monday's bowl games were by and Caltech, Chairman of the Board ter, Christine. She will have responsi­ trators entered the Rose Bowl several large showcases for the underdogs, R. Stanton Avery has announced. bility for managing alumni activities times to splice a microprocessor into including the underest dogs of all, Moore is the co-founder of the - including Seminar Day, travel the Rose Bowl system and handle athletically speaking- Pasadena's Intel Corporation and of the Fairchild programs, chapter meetings, class other technological details. Lee Caltech. Semiconductor Corporation, which reunions, and student recruitment Sampson, press box supervisor, said By the third quarter of the Rose became the Semiconductor Division support program - and will direct Rose Bowl officials do not know how Bowl game the attention of tens of of the Fairchild Camera and Instru­ alumni office operations. the students obtained a copy of the thousands of fans had begun to ment Corporation. As director of Weingarten has been with the only computer program that oper­ wander. Some fans themselves, in research and development of Fair­ University of Southern California for ated the scoreboard. fact, began to wander. Illinois child during the late 1950s and 1960s, seven years as director of student Kegel submitted elaborate plans for rooters, after a brief frenzied but he supervised much of the work on programs and was coordinator of the project for class credit in Electri­ futile third-quarter effort to rally which today's semiconductor indus­ student affairs at California State cal Engineering 91, "Experimental their team, seemed to find their try is based. University, Long Beach. Projects in Electronic Circuits," kneecaps or their shoelaces more At Intel, he led in creating many of She is a graduate of the University taught by Stanley H. Bacon, lecturer interesting than the' game, to judge the semiconductor memories and of Oregon and has done advanced in electrical engineering. He titled the from the downward cast of so many microprocessors that are now main­ study at Cal State Long Beach and at project "Bulletin Board Control," and heads. Even some UCLA fans were stays of the computer industry. USc. Bacon was under the illusion that it beginning to feel uncomfortably In 1975, Moore was recipient of involved remote control systems for inhospitable, particularly those Caltech's Distinguished Alumni bulletin boards used in stock trading. sandwiched-as we were-among Award, the Institute's highest honor Student critically He only learned of the project's loyal Illini who had traveled so far to to a graduate. In 1975, he endowed true purpose a few minutes before the watch their favored champions make the Gordon and Betty Moore Profes­ injured in Noyes game, when Kegel called him and up for 20 years of failure to head sorship at Caltech. Carver Mead, an explo~iqn_ asked him to be sure to watch it. west for the oldest of bowl games. innovator in development of tech­ In 1982 and 1983, students at­ Enter Caltech- through the air, of niques for design of complex inte­ Two Caltech graduate students in tempted to bury balloons in the Rose course- manipulating the Rose Bowl grated circuits, is the Moore Profes­ Noyes Chemical Laboratory were Bowl field that would rise, inflate, scoreboard with a microprocessor sor of Computer Science. injured about 8:40 p.m. on January and carry away streamers boosting transmitting signals from a radio 4. When Caltech News went to press, Cal tech. They were foiled in both installed two mires away.