California Institute off Technology

California Institute off Technology or Caltech is one of faculties of the the most known United States of share the world. It is located at Pasadena, in the suburbs of Los Angeles (California). It is indeed at the origin of more than thirty Nobel Prize as well as four Prix Crafoord, and many personalities distinguished by American prices in the fields from science, technology and engineering.

Its mission is to extend human knowledge through the research integrated into teaching. Caltech is related to the basic research, with the scientific and technical problems in an interdisciplinary and collegial spirit, as well as training of students at creative strong potential. Caltech counts nearly 500 professors and researchers, and a campus of 2700 students. It integrates also the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the NASA which counts 5200 people related to this center of activity. It was creates in 1891.

It also has charges management with it with the Observatoire of the Mount Palomar located close to San Diego in California, of which it is owner.

History

Caltech was created in 1891 by Amos Gager Throop, a local politician with partly of the gifts of Andrew Carnegie, a large industrialist. The school was known successively under the names of Throop University , Throop Polytechnic Institute , and Throop College off Technology , before being seen allotting its current name in 1920. Caltech and Polytechnic School then formed part of the same institution since 1907. Polytechnic School is from now on a distinct private university being located near Caltech.

It is the astronomer George Ellery Hale who made of Caltech, then a school of Artisanat, a scientific center of world famous. Haul had joined the steering committee of the university after being arrived at Pasadena in 1907 as a first director of the Observatoire of the Mount Wilson. At that time where the scientific research was still at its beginnings with the the United States, Hale seizes opportunity of creating in Pasadena an institution for launching serious research in the natural science and educating the engineers. Haul managed to provide to the school a complex laboratories modern and equipped well, and this thanks to many gifts of ground and money. It convinced thereafter two of the most influential American scientists of the time, Arthur Amos Noyes (physical Chemistry) and Robert Andrews Millikan (experimental Physicist) to join Caltech and to contribute to its project to make of it a center for the Science and the Technology.

In 1917 Hale required of the architect Bertram Goodhue to create a plan of the campus of 89 000 m ². Goodhue designed many buildings (Dabney Hall, Physics Building) so that they are in agreement with the climate and the local landscape as well as the character of the school and the educational philosophy of Hauls. Its ideas were also influenced by Spanish architecture traditional of the missions of the California of the south.

Under the direction of Hauls, Noyes and Millikan (and thanks to the economy in rapid evolution of the area), Caltech grows in an important way in prestige in the Années 1920. In 1923 Millikan accepted the Nobel Prize of physics. In 1925 the school establishes a department of Géologie and made come William Bennett Munro, then lecturer to the division of history, economy and governmental studies of the Université Harvard, to create a division of Humanités and Social sciences in Caltech. In 1928 a division of Biologie was created under the direction of Thomas Hunt Morgan, the biologist more recognized country, which had discovered the role of the Gène S and the Chromosome S in the Hérédité. In 1926 a school of Aéronautique was made up which made arrive Theodore von Karman, which contributed later to the creation of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and establishes Caltech as one of the most important centers of sciences concerning the rocket S. In 1928 the construction of the Observatoire of the Mount Palomar started.

Millikan was president de Caltech of 1921 with 1945 and its influence was such as the institute was sometimes referré as being the “school of Millikan”. In the Years 1950, 60 and 70, Caltech was known through the two larger researchers of the elementary particles of the time: Murray Freezing-Mann and Richard Feynman. Both accepted Nobel Prize for their work, which was central in the establishment of the standard Modèle of this physics. Feynman was also known in all the physical community like an exceptional and picturesque professor.

In 1971 an earthquake of magnitude 6,5 caused damage on the campus. The engineers who evaluated the damage caused on two historical buildings, Throop Hall and Culbertson Auditorium, dating both from the first times of the institute, recommended the demolition. Unfortunately they had been mistaken, because it was harder to destroy these historical structures than would have been to it their repair.

Personalities which result from faculty or which taught there

Prizes winner of the Nobel Prize

Price Crafoord

Other famous personalities

Presidents de Caltech

Since 1920, date on which Throop College off Technology became Caltech, the institute was directed by the following personalities:

Robert A. Millikan (1921-1945), physicist (experimental), prize winner of the Nobel Prize of physics in 1923. Officially its function was entitled " Executive Chairman off the Council"
Lee A. DuBridge (1946-1969), physicist (experimental). It is the first with officially holding the president's function of Caltech.
Harold Brown (1969-1977), physicist and civil servant. It left Caltech to become secretary with Defense in the administration of Jimmy Carter.
Robert F. Christy (1977-1978), astrophysicist
Marvin L. Goldberger (1978-1987), physicist (theoretical)
Thomas E. Everhart (1987-1997), physicist (experimental)
David Baltimore (1997-2006), molecular biologist, prize winner of the Nobel Prize of medicine in 1975
Jean-Lou Camel (2006-present), engineer (dynamic of the grounds, sustainable development)

External bonds

Official site of Caltech (in English) Nobel Prize and Crafoord with Caltech (in English)

Simple: California Institute off Technology

Random links: