Letters

Spring 2022 Volume LXXXV, Number 1 Caltech magazine EDITOR IN CHIEF Lori Oliwenstein SENIOR EDITOR Omar Shamout ART DIRECTOR Jenny K. Somerville MANAGING EDITOR Sharon Kaplan ONLINE EDITOR AND SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR Andrew Moseman CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Whitney Clavin, Lori Dajose, Kimm Fesenmaier, Davin Malasarn, Andrew Moseman, Ann Motrunich, Carol Rasmussen, Omar Shamout DESIGNER Jenny K. Somerville CONTRIBUTING DESIGNER Dennis Lan ILLUSTRATION, PHOTOGRAPHY, VIDEOGRAPHY Lori Dajose, Lance Hayashida, Peter Holderness, Dennis Lan COPY EDITORS Sharon Kaplan, Carolyn Waldron PRODUCED BY CALTECH'S OFFICE OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS Shayna Chabner, Chief Communications Officer Read Caltech magazine on the go at magazine.caltech.edu Contact Caltech magazine at magazine@caltech.edu FSC label Caltech magazine ISSN 2475-9570 (print)/ ISSN 2475-9589 (online) is published at Caltech, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125. All rights reserved. Reproduction of material contained herein forbidden without authoriza-tion. ©2022, California Institute of Technology. Published by Caltech. Image credits: Lance Hayashida (portraits), Shutterstock/AMCImagery/lan Gelinas/ AndreyUG/Shutter_arlulu (stars and jellyfish): cover, 22-23; Lance Hayashida: TOC (large image and lower right), 3 (left), 9 (bottom), 10, 12, 14, 15, 26 (bottom), 32 (right); 39 (Grubbs); Kenneth G. Libbrecht: TOC (right, middle); Victoria Benitez: 3 (top); Shutter-stock/Golden_Hind: 3 (bottom); Mark Garcia: 4-5; Caltech's Big T, 1975: 6 (top); Caltech Archives: 6 (Hufstedler, Lewis), 39 (Quirk, Taylor, Strauss), 40 (right), 41 (bottom); Caltech's Big T, 1932: 6 (Venerable); Science Olympiad: 6 (bottom); Max S. Gerber: 7 (top); photo courtesy Worcester Polytechnic Insti-tute: 7 (bottom); Shutterstock/ Pakhnyushchy: 8 (top); Chris Flynn Photography for Caltech: 9 (top); Jennah Colborn: 11; International Monetary Fund (Creative Commons https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/: 16-17; John Jay Cabuay: 18-19, 21; Courtesy Yazdani Studio of CannonDesign: 20; Lori Dajose: 24; B. Weissbourd / J. DeGiorgis: 25; Nicole Xu: 26 (top); M. Abrams: 27; Shut-terstock/Nomad_Soul: 28; Shutterstock/ Alexander Kondratenko: 29; Briana Ticehurst: 30 (Low); Vicki Chu: 32 (left); Yuchun Sun/ Julia Greer's lab: 32 (right); Jessica Leong for Caltech: 33; Dennis Lan (Loh) and Shutter-stock/Marina Sun (math equations): 34-37; EAS Communications Office: 39 (Corngold); Matt Gregori: 40 (left); Jeffrey Mendez: 41 (top); NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS: back cover. All others, Caltech. Printed by Lithographix, Inc., Hawthorne, CA. 2 Spring 2022 Caltech magazine Letters Moment of "Gravity" Just read your Quantum Gravity article. Phenomenal! Beautifully written, a great tour of Caltech physics. David Zierler Director, Caltech Heritage Project (see story on page 15) Waste Water? Very good story about extremely extensive research into our SoCal water situation. But no mention of dumping half our precious resource into the ocean for political reasons. We search to the heavens for reasons but ignore the obvious! George Cooke (BS '53) Socially Aware A roundup of social media reactions to stories posted on magazine.caltech.edu. ... there's no one quite like Dr. Libbrecht! Geoff Steeves on Facebook in response to a story featuring professor of physics and snowflake expert Ken Libbrecht (BS '80). So proud of you Mahider® keep up the good work！！！LL追e Gomez Maria on Facebook in response to a #SoCaltech profile on Mahider Gessesse. Thank you, @Caltech @CaltechMagazine, for featuring my talk! Lei Li (PhD '19), postdoctoral scholar research associate in medical engineering, on Twitter in response to a story about his photoacoustic engineering research that included a video of his TED Talk. Sounds like something l'd say. Joe Parker, assistant professor of biology and biological engineering, on Twitter in response to a story on rove beetles featuring his quote: "They're the chemists of the animal kingdom." The chalkboard! I love it! One of my favorite places on the campus. Grateful that it exists and is maintained. conrad773 on Instagram in response to a photo of Rana Adhikari, professor of physics; and Kathryn Zurek, professor of theoretical physics. For the Record The following individuals who responded to the Endnotes question in the Fall 2021 issue were not able to be identified due to a technical issue. In recognition of the Break Through Campaign, alumni were asked: "What has been your most significant personal breakthrough?" My biggest breakthrough was completing the ME master's program while a single parent raising a 3-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son. It wasn't easy. Alvah T. Strickland (MS '65) HONOLULU, HI My autism diagnosis. Regarding Caltech, it explained why I flamed out: pressure and poor social knowledge. In retrospect, I realize that I was far from alone in being autistic. It also helps me understand my autistic son, who may very well go to Caltech. Chuck Coleman (MS '87) ALEXANDRIA, VA V. GEH TEL California Winters, a painting by Pasadena resident Victoria Benitez, features the Caltech campus. Endnotes Sneak Peek What are your fondest memories of Mead and/or your undergraduate chemistry classes there? I was a TA for freshman chemistry lab in Mead in 1984-85. One day, one of the students suddenly called out, "I think I have a problem!" For reasons never made clear, he had leaned heavily on the distilled water spigot. His weight had pulled the spigot out of the pipe entirely! Distilled water was gushing out of the open pipe as he tried to block the flow with his hands, which made it spray everywhere. I started following the pipe back to its source. The pipe went to a main, which went across the ceiling and out of the lab room into the hallway and then down the hallway and out of the building into Noyes next door! I raced into Noyes to see if there was some place to shut the flow down inside. Someone from the stockroom there knew where it was and we got the water shut off, but not before we had created an enormous flood! James E. Hanson (PhD '90) MILLTOWN, NJ For more memories of the Clifford S. and Ruth A. Mead Memorial Undergraduate Chemistry Laboratory, see Endnotes on page 40. magazine.caltech.edu 3