Millikan's School: A History of the California Institute of Technology

by Judith R. Goodstein

Overview

“Millikan’s School presents an interesting and thoroughly reliable account of the astonishing change over a period of a few years of a small technical school in Pasadena, California, into one of the world’s leading scientific institutions.” —Linus Pauling

Written in honour of its centenary, this history of Caltech explores its contribution to science and technology by providing profiles of its most famous scientists, such as von Karman in aeronautics, Morgan in biology, Gutenberg in seismology, Noyes in physical chemistry and Epstein in physics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393329988
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	09/17/2006
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Judith R. Goodstein, PhD, is University Archivist and faculty associate at Caltech. She has taught history at Cal State Dominguez Hills and UCLA, while building from scratch an archive and rare book collection about the history of science. She is married to Professor David Goodstein.

Editorial Reviews

Caltech, one of American's premier science institutions, has now completed a distinguished century of education. Named the Throop College of Technology until l920, the Southern California school drew distinguished physicist Robert Millikan from the University of Chicago in 1921. A contemporary of such figures as astrophysicist George Hale and biochemist Arthur Noyes, Millikan, who won a Nobel Prize in 1923, shaped and led the institution until his retirement in 1945. Goodstein, Caltech archivist, commemorates the centennial in terms of the personalities of scientists and administrators, including chemist Linus Pauling, aeronautical designer Donald Douglas and biologist Thomas Hunt Morgan, who influenced Caltech's rise and maturity in such disciplines as engineering and aeronautics, geology and physics. The institution also encompasses the Jet Propulsion Lab, the Wilson Observatory and the Van DeGraaff Accelerator. While dryly presented, this chronicle offers glimpses of the passion and drive that have motivated a roster of distinguished scientists. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Goodstein, archivist for the California Institute of Technology, offers this official history of the school to commemorate its 100th birthday in November 1991. The events and politics that made CalTech one of the leading scientific institutions of the world in the 1920s and 1930s are carefully recorded here. The period after World War II is given only cursory attention. The story of CalTech's role in the development of modern aeronautics, molecular biology, physics, seismology, and even aircraft rockets, as well as the many fascinating people connected with it (physicist Robert Millikan, astronomer George Ellery Hale, biologist Linus Pauling, seismologist Charles Richter, and, of course, Albert Einstein) is told in a somewhat bland and even-toned style that gives equal weight to all parts. This is reliable, standard history. Recommended for science and technology libraries.-- Arla Lindgren, St. John's Univ., Jamaica, N.Y.

Library Journal