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California Institute of Technology Pasadena, California 91125 Change .ervice requeued • N e w 5 Volume 40, Number 2 1 I n T h 5 I 5 5 U e Monsieur Ie Pres i de nt A Se n d-Off for '06 Th e Literature Profes- sor's Ta l e Cannon-Ga ll Run ancl R ed Eyes on t h e Sk ies . , Cal fornia Institute of Technology c a It e c h .. Infrarednecks 3 Infrared astronom y was largely born and certainly bred on the Cal tech campus. Firing Off on the Cannon Caper 7 Ctdlech News looks at the improbable life and incendiary times of an obsolete pi ece of military hardware. Baker's Dozen, with Jenijoy La Belle 8 The literature professor answers 13 questions about her 37 years at Caltech. Also in this issue New NAS f.'lcu lty; a new Feynman Professor; new Distinguished Alumni; new SUppOf[ for the Cal tech Campaig n; new beginnings at Commencement; and a new rake on an o ld ho liday tradi[ion (on [he back-page poscer). Picrurc Credits: Cover-Bill Youngblood; 2,4,5,6, I 0, I 1,12, 13- Roberr Paz; 3-William Reach, NASA/JPL; 3-Palomar Observacory; 6-Kevin Rauch, Alan Ri ce; 8-Cathy 1-lill ; IO-Eric Long! NASM, NASA I)PL; 14 -Roberc Kenn;cu", NASA I)PL; 14-Lockheed Marc;n Space SYStems; 16-Amhony Gharrec. Back Cover P.N. Appleton, ). Bally, NASAI)PL. Poscer Design by Mike ON THE COVER Rogers and Doug Cummin1;s. After a day filled with meetings and introductions, new hire Jean lou Chameau can look forward to Iss ued four rim~s a ytar and published by rhe Clli(ornia In<;riwrc o(Tcchnology and the an Interval of R&R as he heads for Alumni Association, 1200 East California HlvJ., Pas,lu<:n,t, CddurnJ,1 91 125. All righrs a picnic on the Caltech campus. reserved. Third class postage paid at Pasadena, Calirornin. Postmaster: Send address changes m: Cd/lech News, Calttch 1-7 l , Pasadena, CA 9 11 25. EXc(IfIit.'t Editor - Heidi Aspaturian Ponzy Lu '601 Writer - Rhonda Hi ll bery Preside'" oj Ihe A III",,,i AIIOChllio" \f/,.iler - Mi chael Rogers Robert L. O'Rourke Prodllction Arl- Doug Cummings Vi ce President Jor Pllblic I?el(ltiolls COf/lriblllors - Jill Perry, Kathy Svitil, Robert Tindol Col'Y Editors - Allison l3 enrer, Michael Visit Calree h News on tbe lYieb (It Farqu har, Elena Rudncv hI Ip; II pro ((I Itcch. edll Iperiodim/sIC (IIICchN eUJS I A charmer. By bi rth, a Frenchman. nnnoLinced on May 26, amid a seri es A seasoned, visionary adm in istrator. of meeti ngs held that day to introduce ProvOSt of an institution that annually him to the ca mpus community he w ill confers the largest number of eng ineer now lead. ing degrees in the nation. A Renais "J ean-Lou C hameau impressed us ALLONS ENFANTS DE LA CALTECH sance man. A Stanford PhD in ci vil with his intelligence, his vis ion, hi s eng ineering. A (ormer dean of engi personali ty, and his extensive adminis neering. A connoisseur or fine food and trative and fund-raising experience and wi ne, who once thoug ht of opening his success," said D av id Stevenson, Van own restaurant. A charmer. A skill ed O sdol Professor of Planecary Science advocate of interd iscipl inary research, and head of the faeu l[y presidential who has d evoted much of hi s ca reer sea rch committee. "We believe that he to bu i Id i ng bridges and transcend i ng is well sui ted co [he challenges and op boundaries among academic fi elds. portunities of the Calcech p residency in A wonderful li stener and t houghtful a time of change in the g lobal environ conversationalist, fabled for hi s rapport ment of science, technology, and educa wi th students. An effective and far tion. We expect him to be an engaging sighted fund raiser. A committed pro and energ izi ng p resence in Ollr com ponent of diversity, entrepreneurshi p, munity," Added Stevenson, "You will and international collaborations in find, as we did, t hat he is extremely education. And, oh, did we mention charming." a charmer. Up next at the pod ium, Trustee J ean-Lou Chameau, the provost Chairman Kenc Kresa praised Cham and vice president fo r academic affairs eau's "wealth of manageri al experi ence at the Georg ia Insticute of Technol and a strong commitment to students, ogy, is set to become Caltech's eig hth facu lty, and research. H e has done a Jean-lou Chameau (left) introduced himself to students and other members of the Cal tech com p resident on September t , succeeding terrific job at Georgia Tech, and I'm munity during a lively campus picnic on May 26, the day it was annnounced he would step down David Baltimore, who will step d own positive he will lead Caltech with t he from his current position as the provost of Georgia Tech to become the Institute's eighth presi from the pres idency after nearl y nine sal'n e energy, excitement, and wisdom dent. The French-born Chameau, who spent a busy day on campus mingling with faculty, staff, and years to return to full time teaching he displayed there," And, of course, students while trying to get to know the place a bit better, will assume the presidency of Cal tech and research. Chamcau 's selection was sa id Kresa, the same charm . on September I. CfHllllllled 011 page 9 2 I ClIll/orlllfl Instilllle 0/ "fuhnology • VOi.UM E40 NO.2, 2 006 The prototypical Cal tech trio of (left to right) Tom Soifer, Keith Matthews, and Gerry Neuge f r r e d n e c k s bauer takes a break at t he Palomar Observa n a tory in 1978. They would have to wait many more years before seeing infrared images like the one above of Comet 7lP/Schwassmann. Wachmann 1. taken by the Spitzer Space How THREE CALTECH ALUMNI HELPED TAKE INFRARED Telescope on April I. ASTRONOMY FROM THE FARM T O THE MAJOR LEAGUES By M I C. H 1\ I, J It 0 G I; I{ S These are heady times for infrared ascronomy. As rhe Spiezer Space Telescope Neugebauer, Soifer, and Matthews are certain ly flOt the only major players in orbits overhead, hardly a week goes by without some provocative new piece of dara, infrared astronomy to come out of the Institute. The late Ca l tech physicist Roben often accompanied by a glorious image, emerging from a cornucopia of cosmic heat Leighton '4 1, Ph D '47, coll aborated with Neugebauer to bui ld Cal tech's first infra and dust. The f.1ct chac infrared radiation (some of which humans perceive as heat) is red survey telescope, used on the Two Mi cron Sky Survey at Mount Wilson in the able, unlike iigiu, co escape from the imerstell ar and intergalactic d ust that shields mid-1960s. Other prominent scientists who have worked in Caltech's infrared group some of t he most interesting and beautiful objects in the cosmos explains chis hear include Eric Becklin, PhD '68, chief scientist and director des ignate of the science seeking mission's appeal to astronomers and lay public alike. To clare, rhe Spiczer center of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, an airborne telescope Observatory, less than a meter in size, has wened in a sell ar performance. It has set fo r Right testing later thi s yea r; Steven Beckwith, PhD '78, former di rector of the detencd evidence of planetary formation in the stark, inhospitable neighborhood Space Telescope Scie nce rn sti tute, which runs the science operations for the Hubble of a dead neutron star; di rectl y detened the heat from planets orbiting other stars; Space Telescope; and Stanford phys icist and Nobel Laureate Douglas Osheroff '67, identified "molecules of life"--otherwise known as hydrocarbons-that were present who crunc hed in frared dara fo r Neugebauer as a Caltech underg raduate. But while in the cosmos when it was one quarter its current age; and in general reiterated Leig hton passed through t he fie ld of infrared astronomy re latively quickly, and other what new astronomical observations are always telling us-that t he universe is an scientists trained by N eugebauer came and went, Soifer and Matthews scayed . Over infinitely richer and stranger place than we already knew it to be. All this from a the yea rs, they became good friends as well as coll eagues wh~ l ik e <l seasoned jazz mission that on one occasion was canceled outright and later, as a last-ditch compro tri~jam harmoniously tOgether. mise, was downsized 75 percent before finally being launched in August 2003. But infrared astronomy has always had an exceptional capacity to surprise. When WHEH I No ASTRONOMIIt II AD GON I BrFo Il.F Caltech astrophysicists produced the first infrared sky survey 40 years ago, using g round-based infrared detectOrs knocked off from military hardware, they opened When Neugebauer first went to work with LeightOn, he recalls, most astronomers an astonishing and previously unsuspened window onto the universe. A decade thoug ht that they were running up a blind all ey, The twO had met when Gerry, then later, when balloon- and then satellite-borne infrared telescopes were launched above a Cal tech graduate student in the high-energy physics group, worked with Leighton Earth's obscuring atmosphere, hundreds of thousands of aclditional new infrared on a research project t hat involved us ing cloud chambers to investigate exotic sub sources were uncovered, including galaxies emitting huge amounts of infrared en atOmic particles produced in cosmic-ray decays.