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07/22/2014

50 Years of Quarks

Douglas Smith

Caltech's Murray Gell-Mann simplified the world of particle physics in 1964 by standing it on its head. He theorized that protons—subatomic particles as solid as billiard balls and as stable as the universe—were actually cobbled together from bizarre entities, dubbed "quarks," whose properties are unlike anything seen in our world. Unlike protons, quarks cannot be separated from their fellows and studied in isolation; despite this, our understanding of the universe is built on their amply documented existence.

Yuval Ne'eman and Murray Gell-Mann in 1964.

07/22/2014

Ed Stone Honored

Douglas Smith

Ed Stone, Caltech's David Morrisroe Professor of Physics, has won the aerospace equivalent of an Oscar. On Wednesday, July 16, the American Astronautical Society (AAS) presented him its sixth Lifetime Achievement Award for his "sustained and extraordinary contributions to America's space programs, including innovative planetary missions."

07/17/2014

Future Electronics May Depend on Lasers

Jessica Stoller-Conrad

Caltech researchers stabilize microwave oscillators with optical frequencies from a silicon chip. The approach could ultimately replace more conventional methods that rely on crystal references.

06/27/2014

Kip Thorne Discusses First Discovery of Thorne-Żytkow Object

Cynthia Eller

We recently sat down with Kip Thorne to ask how it feels to have astronomers discover something whose existence he postulated decades before.

05/30/2014

40-Year Service Awardees

Douglas Smith

The 59th Annual Staff Service Awards, presented in Beckman Auditorium on Monday, June 2, honored more than 250 staff members whose service ranges from 10 to 50 years. We profile three staff members celebrating 40 years at Caltech.

05/21/2014

Supernova Caught in the Act by Palomar Transient Factory

Cynthia Eller

The problem with observing supernovae is knowing just when and where one is occurring and being able to point a world-class telescope at it in the hours immediately afterward.

05/15/2014

Tricking the Uncertainty Principle

Jessica Stoller-Conrad

Researchers at Caltech find a way to sidestep the quantum "noise" that limits the precision of ultrasensitive position measurements.

05/15/2014

Ditch Day? It's Today, Frosh!

Andrew Allan

During this annual spring rite seniors ditch their classes and vanish from campus, leaving behind complex, carefully planned out puzzles and challenges—known as “stacks”—designed to occupy the underclass students and prevent them from wreaking havoc on the seniors’ rooms.

05/14/2014

Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics Established

Building on Caltech's leading position in fields such as general relativity, astrophysics, quantum computation, superstring theory, elementary particle theory, and condensed matter theory, the new institute will train generations of theoretical physicists.

05/07/2014

50 Years Ago: The First Look at a Dry Mars

Douglas Smith

In 1964, Caltech astronomy professor Guido Münch and Jet Propulsion Laboratory space scientists Lewis Kaplan and Hyron Spinrad pushed the world's second-largest telescope to its limits and dashed—at least for the next few decades—any hopes of finding liquid water on Mars.

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