SCIENCE
April 13, 2013
Stephen Hawking's Southern California lecture series continues Tuesday night at Caltech's Beckman Auditorium, where the renowned theoretical physicist will discuss the big bang, black holes and more in a lecture titled "The Origin of the Universe. " The event is free and open to the public, with 500 seats available on a first-come, first-served basis. Tickets will be handed out as early as 6:45 p.m. An overflow audience can watch the talk on a live video feed elsewhere on campus.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 14, 2013 | Joseph Serna
In the seismic annals of California, Monday's magnitude 4.7 earthquake was little more than a footnote. It gave Southern California a small morning jolt but caused no damage and was largely shrugged off by noon. But in one important way, the quake was highly significant because it marked an advance in California's burgeoning earthquake early warning system. The quake struck in the desert town of Anza, about 35 miles south of Palm Springs, and hundreds of sensors embedded in the ground immediately sent an alert to seismologists at Caltech in Pasadena.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 14, 2013 | By Joseph Serna, Los Angeles Times
For most people, March 14 is just another day. But for math fans and self-proclaimed nerds out there, the day - or, more specifically, the fact that it is 3/14 - is a day to celebrate one of the most important numbers in all of mathematics: pi. So what better way for pi fans to celebrate Pi Day than with … pie? A minute before 2 a.m. on Thursday, students at Caltech in Pasadena dug into 130 pies laid out for them outside student housing. There were 26 each of five different kinds of pie. Follow that?
NATIONAL
March 5, 2013 | Tina Susman
The MIT students were stumped, or as stumped as a group of young adults with SAT scores dwarfing the average mortgage payment could be when faced with the question: Is it ever acceptable to dunk? Quiet settled over the roomful of round tables, where not a backward cap, gum-chomping jaw nor buzzing, bleeping or chirping cellphone was to be seen. A young woman's voice emerged from the back with the answer that etiquette expert Dawn Bryan was hoping to hear: "Basically, you don't dunk unless it's biscotti.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
March 4, 2013 | By Stephen Ceasar, Los Angeles Times
In a move to expand the small but prestigious math and science school, Caltech is preparing to relocate a campus child-care center to make way for a new dorm. But neighbors in the tony Pasadena neighborhood are complaining that the new site is too close to their homes and would create a traffic nightmare. Such town-gown issues are common in Southern California, where schools and universities share valuable stretches of real estate with their residential neighbors. The institutions are in a constant arms race to both attract students and find ways to accommodate them - leading to frequent clashes with the communities that surround them.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
February 19, 2013 | By Larry Gordon and Monte Morin, Los Angeles Times
The president of Caltech, Jean-Lou Chameau, announced Tuesday that he would step down from the leadership of the prestigious science- and math-oriented campus in Pasadena at the end of the current school year and become head of a new and well-endowed university in Saudi Arabia. Chameau, a French-born civil engineer, has been president of Caltech since 2006 and helped the school maintain its high international academic rankings and achieve greater financial stability during a recessionary period of retrenchment at many other colleges, education experts said.