Andrew Lange, Scholar of the Cosmos, Dies at 52
28.01.10
His death was announced by Jean-Lou Chameau, the president of the California Institute of Technology , where Dr. Lange had until recently been chairman of the division of physics, mathematics and astronomy. President Chameau said Dr. Lange appeared to have taken his own life.
Dr. Lange devoted his career to a haze of faint microwaves that pervade the sky, providing a whispery ghost image of the universe when it was only 400,000 years old, before there were stars, galaxies or even atoms.
In the late 1990s, this work put him in the middle of one of the grandest quests in science, the effort to discern the fate of the universe whether it would keep expanding forever or collapse one day into the fire from which it had emerged 14 billion years ago. According to Einstein, that fate was determined by the large-scale geometry of space time, which in turn is determined by the amount of matter and energy in the universe.
Theorists had long favored the Euclidean, or “flat,” geometry that students learn in school a triangle between three distant quasars would have internal angles that add up to 180 degrees but astronomers could not find enough matter in the universe to make it flat. Dr. Lange and his collaborators found that it was energy that was making it flat.
Source: New York Times
School changes rules after student burned
04.02.10
WENATCHEE — Students need to find an adult before putting something in the microwave at Washington Elementary School.
The school sent letters to parents today about the new rule. The change is in response to an accident in December when a 10-year-old girl suffered second-degree burns from hot cider she overheated in the classroom microwave.
“As many parents as are concerned about the safety, there are parents who want their children to have access, so we’re trying to do that in a way that makes it safe,” said Washington Principal Keith Collins.
The school doesn’t have a cafeteria, so students eat lunch in their classrooms. Fifth-grader Keeley Bosman heated up a closed container of hot cider during lunch on Dec. 16, two days before winter break. A buildup of pressure from the unvented container caused the lid to fly open. Hot cider splashed onto Keeley’s face.
Keeley’s mother, Michelle Bosman, said doctors won’t know for another six to eight months if she will be permanently scarred. When asked for further comment, she said her attorney advised her not to talk to the media anymore.
Source: The Wenatchee World Online