An informal history of the California Institute of Technology : [pictorial highlights, 1891-1966]

Seventy-five years have passed since the 1891 opening of "Throop University," a school of arts and crafts that has evolved into the preeminent institution that is today's California Institute of Technology. This anniversary serves as an occasion to look back at our beginnings and to assess our future. It is rewarding to note the continuity of the past 75 years, to emphasize this continuity, and to recognize that changes in the Institute have always accompanied and have often preceded changes in the community and in the country. In presenting this pictorial account of the Institute's development, I would point out with pride that for 75 years Caltech has served the present and anticipated the future -- a challenge that will always be our goal

The goals of University research

The university is viewed as an institution for sharpening men's intellectual abilities and focusing them on mankind's basic problems. Research seeks knowledge as a step toward understanding

History and Activities of the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Radiation Laboratory of the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the largest wartime laboratory devoted to radar research and development and the largest single enterprise of the National Defense Research Committee, is demobilizing after five years of intense work heretofore shrouded by tight military security. Operating as a quasi-governmental agency, the Radiation Laboratory participated in one of the most extraordinary cooperative scientific efforts in history -- an enterprise which included many British government and industrial laboratories, several U.S. Army and Navy laboratories, and a host of U.S. industrial laboratories, large and small. From the combined effort of all came the development of a radar industry which provided Allied fighting forces with an amazing array of radar equipments. Individually, each was far in advance of any radar the enemy nations possessed; collectively, our radar revolutionized many phases of modern warfare and contributed significantly to the Allied victory

The physics of solids

I have been asked to review before this group some of the developments in physics during the past twenty-five years, particularly as they relate to our understanding of the physics of solids. I am going to address my remarks particularly to those who have not been in a position to follow these developments but who are interested in getting a general idea of the new ideas which have proved of value in understanding and correlating the properties of solids

Scientific Manpower

The most conservative figures on the shortage of engineers suggests that this shortage is now around 95,000 and will reach 156,000 by 1955. A less conservative view of the figures available suggests that this situation might be much worse. The number of new engineers now being produced each year may be actually less than the number lost to engineering activities through death, military service, and transfer to nonengineering duties. We might be 300,000 engineers short by 1955. Since it takes four years to train an engineer, all we can do during the next four years is to make better use of the engineering manpower which will be available. But high-school students are being discouraged from entering the fields of science and engineering by misleading statements of prominent people that science and engineering are the cause of the world's troubles. Engineers and scientists can do much to remove this misapprehension by pointing out that scientists and engineers also work for human welfare and that science and engineering are helping to solve the world's troubles rather than causing them. This must be done and additional scholarship funds be made available before the downward trend in engineering and science enrollments is reversed

R. A. Millikan and the California Institute of Technology

If one examines a list of the publications of R.A. Millikan, arranged in chronological order, one finds essentially no break in continuity from 1910 to the present, except for the war years, 1918-20 and 1941-45. In particular, the years 1921 to 1940 were among the most productive of his career. One would never suppose that in 1921 Dr. Millikan assumed an administrative task of such great magnitude that it would have effectively stopped the research activities of most ordinary men. Moreover, one cannot explain this phenomenon by the assumption that Dr. Millikan gave but brief attention to his new administrative duties. On the contrary, his new tasks were carried forward with such zeal, vigor, and effectiveness that one who examines the history of his administrative achievements during the two decades after 1921 can only be astonished that a single man could carry such a burden even though he gave it all of his time and attention. His successor in these tasks hardly dares hope that he can ever resume a scientific career. In 1920 the name of a small technical school in Pasadena, California was changed from Throop College of Technology to the California Institute of Technology. This change in name was the external evidence for the culmination of the dreams and practical efforts of Dr. George Ellery Hale, the founder and, for many years, the Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. By 1908, Dr. Hale had seen the possibilities for establishing a great and unique center of pure and applied science in Southern California, and he started active work toward this goal. In 1913 he enlisted the aid of Dr. A.A. Noyes, distinguished chemist of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who came to Throop College first on a part-time basis, and in 1919 assumed full-time direction of the Laboratory of Chemistry

Radioactive isotopes of Sr, Y and Zr

Radioactive isotopes formed by bombardment of Rb, Sr and Y by protons, deuterons and neutrons are reported. The following are the periods and assignments: 2.75-hr. (Sr87*, e-, γ); 70-min. (Sr85, e-, γ); 66-day (Sr85, K, γ); 80-hr. (Y87, K); 14-hr. (Y87, e-, γ); 105-day (Y86, K, γ); 4.5-min. (Zr89, γ); 78-hr. (Zr89, β+). (In each case e- means conversion electrons, not nuclear β-rays.) The electron spectrum of the 2.75-hr. Sr87* shows a single line at 360 kev and this period is shown to grow from the 80-hr. Y87, but not from the 14-hr. isomer

A radioactive isomer of Sr87

In connection with studies soon to be reported of the radioactive isotopes of Sr and Y we have given particular attention to a period of 2.7±0.2 hours which appears to be associated with an excited state of stable Sr87

Electron emission into dielectric liquids

The current between polished nickel electrodes immersed in pure toluene has been measured as a function of electric field (over the range 0 to 250,000 volts/cm) and of temperature (from - 15 to 70°C). The Richardson lines are straight but show a very small slope (0.05 to 0.4 ev) and a small value of the constant A (10^-9 to 10^-11 amp./cm^2 deg.^2). The logi vs. E1 / 2 curves show a slope about twice the value e3 / 2 / D1 / 2kT predicted by the simple Schottky theory, but in agreement with the theory of Baker and Boltz. It is found however that there are serious objections to this theory, and the agreement with it is probably accidental. The situation is in fact too complex to be handled by a simple theory. It is suggested that for the low potential barrier present at the metal-dielectric interface a combination of thermionic and field currents would be expected which would account qualitatively for the observed behavior