California Institute of Technology: Encyclopedia - California Institute of Technology

California Institute of Technology

The California Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Caltech) is a private, coeducational university located in Pasadena, California, in the United States. One of the world's premier research universities, Caltech maintains a strong emphasis on the natural sciences and engineering. Caltech also owns and manages the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), an autonomous-space-flight complex that oversees the design and operation of most of NASA's space-probes.

California Institute of Technology - History

Modern Caltech grew from a vocational school founded in Pasadena in 1891 by local businessman and politician Amos G. Throop. The school was known successively as Throop University, Throop Polytechnic Institute, and Throop College of Technology, before acquiring its current name in 1920. Caltech and Polytechnic School were part of the same insitution till 1907. Polytechnic School is now a private college preparatory school across the street from Caltech.

The driving force behind the transformation of Caltech from a school of arts and crafts to a world-class scientific center was the vision of astronomer George Ellery Hale. Hale had joined Throop's board of trustees after coming to Pasadena in 1907 as the first director of the Mount Wilson Observatory. At a time when scientific research in the United States was still in its infancy, Hale saw an opportunity to create in Pasadena an institution for serious research and education in engineering and the natural sciences. Hale succeeded in attracting private gifts of land and money that allowed him to endow the school with well-equipped, modern laboratory facilities. He then convinced two of the leading American scientists of the time, physical chemist Arthur Amos Noyes and experimental physicist Robert Andrews Millikan, to join Caltech's faculty and contribute to the project of establishing it as a center for science and technology.

In 1917 Hale hired architect Bertram Goodhue to produce a master plan for the 22 acre (89,000 m²) campus. Goodhue conceived of the overall layout of the campus and designed the Physics Building, Dabney Hall, and several other structures, in which he sought to be consistent with the local climate, the character of the school, and Hale's educational philosophy. Goodhue's designs for Caltech were also influenced by the traditional Spanish mission architecture of Southern California.

Under the leadership of Hale, Noyes, and Millikan (and aided by the booming economy of Southern California), Caltech grew very significantly in prestige in the 1920s. In 1923, Millikan was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics. In 1925 the school established a department of geology and hired William Bennett Munro, then chairman of the division of History, Government, and Economics at Harvard University, to create a division of humanities and social sciences at Caltech. In 1928 a division of biology was established under the leadership of Thomas Hunt Morgan, the most distinguished biologist in the United States and a discoverer of the role of genes and the chromosome in heredity. In 1926 a graduate school of aeronautics was created which eventually attracted Theodore von Kármán, who later contributed to the creation of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and who established Caltech as one of the foremost centers for rocket-science. In 1928 construction began on the Palomar Observatory.

Millikan served as "chairman of the executive council" (effectively Caltech's president) from 1921 to 1945, and his influence was such that the Institute was occasionally referred to as "Millikan's School." In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Caltech was known as the home of arguably the two greatest theoretical particle physicists working at the time: Murray Gell-Mann and Richard Feynman. Both Gell-Mann and Feynman received Nobel Prizes for their work, which was central to the establishment of the so-called "Standard Model" of particle physics. Feynman was also widely known outside the physics community as an exceptional teacher and a colorful, unconventional character.

Caltech remains, to this day, a relatively small university, with approximately 900 undergraduates, 1,200 graduate students, and 915 faculty members (including professors, permanent research faculty, and postdoctoral researchers.) It is a private institution, governed by its Board of Trustees.

As of 2005, Caltech claims 31 Nobel laureates to its name. This figure includes 17 alumni, 14 non-alumni professors, and 4 professors who were also alumni (Carl D. Anderson, Linus Pauling, William A. Fowler, and Edward B. Lewis). The number of awards is 32, because Pauling received the prize in both chemistry and peace. Five faculty and alumni have received a Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, while 47 have been awarded the U.S. National Medal of Science, and 10 have received the National Medal of Technology [1]. Other distinguished researchers have been affiliated with Caltech as postdoctoral scholars (e.g., Barbara McClintock, James D. Watson, and Sheldon Glashow) or visiting professors (e.g. Albert Einstein and Edward Witten).

The movie comedy Real Genius and the CBS crime drama Numb3rs are loosely based on events at Caltech. [2]

Caltech is ranked the seventh best university in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, and is tied for this spot with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

California Institute of Technology - Academics

Academics at Caltech are famously hard, and the analogy of drinking water from a firehose is often applied. Life is sometimes described by the aphorism, "Work, sleep, social life: pick two," pointing to the great amount of academic work. While Caltech is most famous for its physics department, under the leadership of David Baltimore, it has strived particularly to improve its facilities in the life sciences. Caltech is also known for interdisciplinary programs such as the Computation and Neural Systems (CNS) program.

California Institute of Technology - Academic departments

Caltech is divided into six divisions, each of which offer several degree programs, as well as a number of interdisciplinary programs.

• Division of Biology
• Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
  • Chemistry
  • Chemical Engineering
• Division of Engineering and Applied Science
  • Aeronautics (GALCIT)
  • Applied & Computational Mathematics
  • Applied Mechanics
  • Civil Engineering
  • Computer Science
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Materials Science
  • Mechanical Engineering
• Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences
  • Geology
  • Geophysics
• Division of Humanities and Social Sciences
  • Humanities
    • History
    • English language
    • History and Philosophy of Science
  • Social Sciences
    • Economics
    • Business Economics and Management
    • Social science
• Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy
  • Physics
  • Mathematics
  • Astronomy
• Applied Physics
• Biochemistry
• Bioengineering
• Biophysics
• Computation & Neural Systems
• Control & Dynamical Systems
• Environmental Science & Engineering
• Geobiology & Astrobiology
• Geochemistry
• Planetary science

Not all of these are offered for both undergraduate and graduate students.

California Institute of Technology - Undergraduate program

Caltech is on the quarter system, meaning that students have one quarter before winter break and two quarters after. Thus, the college starts relatively late, in late September, and ends in early June rather than May like most colleges. Also, Caltech is unusual in that students normally take five classes every term rather than four as at most colleges. Finally, rather than majors and minors, Caltech has "options"; a particular option may be a minor or a major, but there cannot be a minor and major in the same subject. Students are allowed to take two options, but only in different divisions. While this technically rules out double-majoring in math and physics, such a combination is considered so exceptionally hard that those who can manage it are generally given an exception.

Caltech is known for a rigorous math and science core curriculum. Students are expected to take five quarters of core math, including differential equations and probability and statistics, five quarters of core physics including quantum mechanics, special relativity, and statistical physics, two quarters of chemistry, and a quarter of biology, as well as two quarters of laboratory classes.

Despite the high pressure of academics, few students fail classes or fail out of the school as a whole, although the option of transferring out is a running joke. This is due to several cushions that help students survive. First of all, the first two quarters during freshman year are on a pass/fail grading scheme, easing the transition to college. During the second quarter, "shadow grades" are given, but during the first, there are no grades at all. Second, there is little competition and collaboration on homework is encouraged in almost every class. This allows even students who are not doing as well as others to learn the material and not get behind in their studies.

Undergraduates at Caltech are also encouraged to participate in research. Most students do research through the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program at least once during their stay, and many continue it during the school year. Students come up with SURF proposals in collaboration with professors, and usually most of the SURF grant requests are awarded.

California Institute of Technology - Student life

California Institute of Technology - House system

See main article: House System at Caltech

During the early 20th century, a Caltech committee visited several universities and decided to transform the undergraduate housing system from regular fraternities to a House System, similar to the residential college system of Oxford and Cambridge. Four (south) houses (or hovses, so named for the inscription on the gates thereof) were built: Blacker House, Dabney House, Fleming House, and Ricketts House. In the 1960s, three north houses were built: Lloyd House, Page House, and Ruddock House. During the 1990s, an additional house, Avery House, was built to accommodate those who feel the original seven houses were not suitable for them. Some students jocularly refer to the Undergraduate Computer Science Laboratory as another house, as a few spend most of their time there. The four south houses will be closed for renovation during the 2005–2006 school year.

California Institute of Technology - Traditions

There are many annual traditions at Caltech, demonstrating the weird and wonderful creativity of its inhabitants. Every Halloween there is a pumpkin drop from the top of the Millikan Library, the highest point on campus, where the pumpkin (frozen in liquid nitrogen) supposedly flashes as it hits the ground, when it reaches "the terminal velocity". Then there is the annual Ditch Day, where seniors ditch school but design elaborate tasks and traps at the doors of their rooms to prevent underclassmen from entering. This has evolved to the point where many seniors spend months designing mechanical/electrical/software obstacles in order to confound the underclassmen. The faculty has been drawn into the event as well, and cancel all classes on Ditch Day so that the underclassmen can participate in what has become a highlight of the year.

Another tradition is the playing of the Ride of the Valkyries at 7 AM the morning of finals week with the largest speakers available. The playing of that piece is not allowed at any other time, and any offender is dragged off into the showers to be drenched in cold water fully dressed. The playing of the Ride is such a strong tradition that the music was used during Apollo 17 to awaken Astronaut Harrison Schmitt, the only astronaut-scientist to explore the moon.

Caltech students have been known for the many pranks (also known as RF's) they have pulled off in the area. The two most famous are the changing of the Hollywood sign to read Caltech, by judiciously covering up certain parts of the letters, and the changing of the Rose Bowl scoreboard to an imaginary game where Caltech soundly trounced MIT. During the 1961 Rose Bowl Game, Caltech students altered the flip-cards that were raised by the stadium attendees to display "Caltech".

Recently, a group of Caltech students, during the admitted students program at MIT in 2005, pulled a string of pranks, including covering up the word Massachusetts in the "Massachusetts Institute of Technology" engraving on the main building façade with a banner so that it read "That Other Institute of Technology". A group of MIT hackers retaliated by altering the banner so that the inscription read "The Only Institute of Technology".

Life in the Caltech community is governed by the Honor Code, which states simply: "No member of the Caltech community shall take unfair advantage of any other member of the Caltech community." This is enforced by a Board of Control, which consists of undergraduate students[3], and by a similar body at the graduate level, called the Graduate Review Board [4]. The Honor Code, and the atmosphere of respect and trust that it promotes, allows Caltech students to enjoy privileges that make for a more relaxed atmosphere. For example, the Honor Code allows the professors to trust students sufficiently to give them take-home tests. Almost all Caltech tests are take-home, allowing students to take them on their own schedule and in their preferred environment.

See also

• List of California Institute of Technology people

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "California Institute of Technology", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki