California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology ("California Technology Institute") or Caltech istablished in 1891, is one of the best-known universities of the United States in theworld. It is originally more of thirty Nobel Prize as well as five Crafoord Prize, and many personalities distinguished American Award in the fields of science, technologyand engineering. It is located in Pasadena, suburb of Los Angeles (California).
Its mission is to expand human knowledge through research integrated into education. Caltech is involved in basic research, scientific and technical issues in an interdisciplinary and College spirit, as well as in the training of students with a high creativepotential.
Caltech account nearly 500 teachers and researchers, and a campus of 2 700 students. It also contains the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA which has 5 200 people. There also supports the management of the the Palomar Observatory near SanDiego, California, which he owns.
Caltech was created in 1891 by Amos G. Throop (en), a local politician in part thanksto donations from the famous philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. The school was known successively as Throop University, Throop Polytechnic Institute, and Throop College of Technology, before being given its current name in 1920. Caltech and Polytechnic School (en) were part of the same institution since 1907. Polytechnic School isnow a separate private University located nearby.
Millikan Library, the largest building on campus
It is the astronomer George Ellery Hale who made Caltech, then craft school, a scientific centre of world renown. He joined the Committee of management of the University after arriving in Pasadena in 1907 as the first Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory. At this time where scientific research was still in its infancy in the United States, Hale took the opportunity to create in Pasadena an institution to launch seriousresearch in the natural sciences and train engineers. He arrived at the school provide a complex of modern and well-equipped laboratories, through many donations ofland and money. He subsequently convinced two of the most influential American scientists of the era, Arthur Amos Noyes (en) (physical chemistry) and Robert Andrews Millikan (experimental physicist) to join the school and contribute to his project tocreate a centre for science and technology.
In 1917 Hale asked architect Bertram Goodhue to create a campus of 89 000 m2. Goodhue designed many buildings (Dabney Hall, the Physics Building) so that they arein harmony with the climate and the landscape, as well as the character of the school and the educational philosophy of Hale. His ideas were also influenced by the traditional Spanish architecture of the missions of Southern California.
Under the leadership of Hale, Noyes, and Millikan (and thanks to the region's rapideconomic growth), the reputation of the Caltech has increased significantly in the 1920s. In 1923 Millikan was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. In 1925 the school established a Department of geology and summoned William Bennett Munro, then master of conference at the division of history, economy and Government studies fromHarvard 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 HuntMorgan, the most recognized biologist of the country, who discovered the role of genes and chromosomes in heredity. In 1926 a school of Aeronautics was formed which saw Theodore von Kármán, who later contributed to the creation of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and establishes the Caltech as one of the most important science about centers the rockets. In 1928 began the construction of the Palomar Observatory.
