CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

by-name Caltech in Pasadena, Calif., a small, select, private university and research institute emphasizing graduate and undergraduate instruction and research in pure and applied science and engineering. It was established as the Throop Polytechnic Institute in 1891 and assumed its present name in 1920. Superbly equipped, and staffed by a faculty of distinguished, creative scientists, Caltech is considered one of the major research centres of the world. Several eminent scientists have worked and taught there, including physicists Robert Millikan, Richard Feynman, and Murray Gell-Mann, astronomer George Ellery Hale, and biochemist Linus Pauling. In 1958 the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech, operating in conjunction with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, launched Explorer I, the first U.S. satellite, and subsequently conducted other programs of space and lunar exploration. Caltech operates astronomical observatories at such locations as Owens Valley, Palomar Mountain, and Big Bear Lake, Calif., and at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Other institute facilities include a seismological laboratory in Pasadena; a marine biological laboratory at Corona del Mar; and a centre near Bishop for the study of radio astronomy.