Jesse L. Greenstein
1909–2002

Jesse L. Greenstein, the DuBridge Professor of Astrophysics, Emeritus, died October 21 at the age of 93. Greenstein came to Caltech in 1948 to organize a new graduate program in optical astronomy in conjunction with the new 200-inch Hale Telescope on Palomar Moun-tain. The Caltech astronomy program quickly became the premier academic program of its kind in the world, with Greenstein leading it from 1948 to 1972. His research interests largely centered on the physics of astronomical objects. The next issue of E&S will carry excerpts of the memorial service, which will be held February 11 at 3:30 in Dabney Lounge.

Wheeler J. North
1922–2002

Wheeler J. North, professor of environmental science, emeritus, died December 20 at the age of 80.

He earned two bachelor’s degrees from Caltech, one in electrical engineering in 1944 and another in biology in 1950, and had been a mem-ber of the faculty since 1962.

North studied kelp, prov-ing that the ocean’s kelp beds are part of a complex marine ecosystem providing food and shelter for hundreds of under-water species. He pioneered scuba diving as a basic tool for marine scientists.

A memorial service, which will be reported in E&S, will be held February 22 at Dana Point.

Satish Dhawan
1920–2002

Satish Dhawan, who was director of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), chairman of the Indian Space Commission and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), and president of the Indian Academy of Sciences, received his engineering degree from Caltech in 1949, his PhD in aeronautics in 1951, and a Distinguished Alumni Award in 1969. He returned to Caltech as a visiting professor in 1971-72, when he reportedly asked to delay Indira Ghandi’s summons to return home to head the ISRO until his course was finished. Hans Liepmann, Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics, Emeritus, was his thesis adviser.

Remembering Satish Dhawan

by Hans Liepmann

In January 2002, Satish Dhawan, my friend for more than half a century, whose personality and friendship had an important and lasting effect on me and my understanding of India, died at his home in Bangalore, India. Roddam Narasimha (Caltech PhD ’61, Distinguished Alumni Award ’86), also a professor at the Indian Insti-tute of Science, has written a complete and beautiful his-tory of Dhawan’s life, the man and his contributions to society—a story so well presented and complete that there is little I could have added to it, even at a time when I was a great deal younger and a better writer than now, in my 89th year. All I can add are a few reminiscences of our first meeting and our work together—a time for which there exist now few living witnesses—and glimpses of our contacts over all these years.

I have often mused about the bifurcation points in one’s life, the times when a small and sometimes even unwelcome choice of alternatives results in major changes in one’s future. One of these bifurcations (in, I believe, 1946) resulted in my meeting Satish Dhawan. I wrote about the occasion a number of years ago in a memoir.

Ernie Sechler, one of the ori-ginal members of the GALCIT (Graduate Aeronautical Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology) faculty, was an excellent engineer, but his most outstanding quality in my opinion was an uncanny feeling for the potential of students. Ernie handled the graduate ad-missions. Looking back now, I realize that on every occasion where we disagreed on potential student behavior and performance, he was right and I was wrong.

Sometime in the mid-’40s, I worked with two Indian graduate students (both, I believe, from upper-crust, wealthy back-grounds) with whom I could not work well. They both seemed to have a reluctance to perform the sometimes unpleasant and boring chores necessary in experimental research. I was, of course, not stupid enough to consider this a general characteristic of Indians, but I felt that perhaps the select group that came to Caltech from India had prejudices against manual labor and essential, but not highly intellectual and glamorous, routines. In any case, I told Ernie that I’d like a rest from Indian students.

Within days he called me with the news that he had a new student from India who wanted to work with me. At first I wouldn’t even agree to come down to the second floor to talk to the student, but Ernie insisted, and knowing him and his instincts about students, I finally did walk downstairs, where I met Satish Dhawan. Later he was to become the director of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, the Indian institution probably closest in scope and aim to Caltech. Ever since then, we in GALCIT have had close contacts with the Indian Institute of Science, and thus a calibration station for admissions, leading to some excellent Indian graduate students at GALCIT.

Satish did join my research group, and it soon became evident that we had acquired an outstanding new member. From his previous scholastic records, we expected excellence in scholarship and class work, but there was so much more. Satish was immediately accepted and respected by this highly competent and proud group of young scien-tists. He showed an unusual maturity in judging both scientific and human problems, a characteristic that today is called “leadership quality.” I usually hate using terms like this to pigeonhole a person, but here it fits. Satish could be tough with-out having to get mad first—a trait that I envy. He was a natural mentor for younger people. Finally, he had a very good sense of humor, a quali-ty that I think is necessary, but not sufficient, to keep one from becoming pompous in old age. I still remember our Ping-Pong games in the lab. When Satish won, he would crack: “See, I am a crafty Asiatic!”

Anatol Roshko (now Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics, Emeritus), Satish, and I worked together on a problem in shockwave–boundary-layer interaction. This was Satish’s first participation in active research. It was a mar-velous time! Almost everything we touched was new and exciting. Our equipment was modest, even for the standards of the time, but with some ingenuity it could be made competitive; this was an additional stimulus. The three of us worked easily and well together and laid the foundation for our lasting friendship over the next half century. After this work was done, Satish started his thesis work on the direct measurement of skin friction. This was actually a classical prob-lem in low-speed flow of both fundamental and direct tech-nical importance. The aim of Satish’s effort was the devel-opment of a new technique capable of making similar measurements in supersonic flow possible. It was the beginning of a lasting re-search effort and a great success. In addition, Satish cooperated with Anatol on the design and construction of an ingenious flexible nozzle for our research in supersonic flows—another example of ingenuity substituting for large amounts of grant money.

Finally bureaucracy inter-vened, and Satish had to re-turn to India in such a hurry that he could not even finish the introduction to this thesis, which, like any good researcher, he had left to be done last. So I finished it for him, which led to a funny incident: One faculty mem-ber reading the rough draft of the thesis called me up com-plaining that in the introduction Satish had not acknowledged me as his thesis super-visor. So I had to add a re-mark to this effect. After the report came out, it happened that the great Sir Geoffrey Taylor visited GALCIT, and I showed him Satish’s work. He happened to have a leaking fountain pen with him and managed to make a spot on the title page. I asked him to sign the spot with his name and send the signed report to Satish. I wonder what became of it.

In 1964, I took my family with me for a term at the Indian Institute of Science. It was certainly no accident that Bangalore was the only place for me to spend a term away from my many years at Cal-tech. It was not nearly as easy to get there as now. Bangalore had not yet developed into the Silicon Valley of India. We got stranded for a few days in Delhi, and the long-distance telephone worked only sporadically.

At this time Satish had been director of IISc for only a few years, but the place was already humming, full of young, eager students and obviously endowed with a new confidence in the future. We lived on the campus. Some evenings Satish would come to our “hutment,” and the two of us would walk around the campus and talk about anything that we con-sidered a university should do and be. At other times we gathered together in the director’s place for tea in the evening, where we learned much about Indian life and aspirations. Nalini, Satish’s wife, we met there for the first time, and she and their children became part of our extended family. I know now enough of university life and problems to realize how im-mensely difficult it was for Satish at his young age to reform time-honored curricula and professor-student interaction, and to instill the self-confidence necessary to reach for new research vistas. That he succeeded beyond all expectations was evident to me on my later, shorter trips to Bangalore.

Many years ago Satish told me that accurate weather pre-diction could improve India’s economy decisively. With the flock of satellites he helped organize, Satish did indeed do something about the weather. Now future geophysical satellites will be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, named in his honor last September.