IIT - Inventing the Future

Few days a week I get to enjoy a solemn ride home on Chicago’s red line train. I join a train full of working professionals traveling from Chicago’s White Sox loving south side to the bleeding blue nation of Cubs fans in the north side. I take this 35 minute commute to relax with my face in a good book albeit the talking and the ever annoying passenger whose iPod and white headphones blast music we all can hear (If this has happened to you... don’t you find it ironic it is always the exact music you DO NOT listen to?). Anyway, I have been reading Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons (I know I’m behind and I refuse to watch the movie prior to the books completion) lately but a couple times a month I get a free copy of The Economist through the Undergraduate Admission department. I think we accidently ordered double copies, but hey, it’s getting put to good use! If you ever have a chance to pick The Economist I suggest shuffling through it. It’s a great magazine due to the fact that we (America) do not write it.

Usually I skim through and read a few articles about Business and current events over in Asia, but this week’s issue had a double page feature about IIT alum, Marty Cooper. If you are not familiar with his name... don’t worry as you are not alone. Unless you work or at one point worked with IIT, or in the telecoms industry you would not know his name. Ergo, he is the most influential person no one has ever heard of. I’ll put it this way – without him we would never be able to stay so interconnected. The title of the article was appropriately entitled, “Father of the Cell Phone.”

Cooper received his bachelors and masters in electrical engineering at IIT and immediately turned what he learned in the classroom into practical real life application. He helped create the first hand-held mobile phone – The Dynatac, as it was notable referred to, which weighed in at 2.2 lbs. Motorola and Marty Cooper not only created a game-changing device but also made it easier to hang up on people who otherwise are a little long winded (it had a 35 minute talk time.. . genius!). We all have those friends....

Marty Cooper was always ahead of his time – a visionary.

I looked at all the people already on the train and the ones fighting for a place to stand amidst the crowd. Majority of them were texting, listening to music, and talking on his or cell phone and none of them knew the article I just read affects them all. Yet, none of them will ever pay homage to Mister Marty Cooper. But according to the article, he may like it that way; at 80 years old he still retains his graciousness and modesty. Now every time I look at my phone I can thank him for making it a size that not only fits in the palm of my hands but also my pocket. What will he think of next....?

Malhotra out (AKA Rishab)

You can find this article on the online Economist.

On June 2, IIT Professor Christopher White led an interactive lecture on the science behind the recent book-turned-movie Angels & Demons. In the book, protagonist Robert Langdon races against time to stop the zealot Illuminati group from destroying the Vatican. The diabolical plot involves the theft of a quarter of a gram of antimatter from the CERN research facility in Geneva, Switzerland. The book explains that if antimatter comes into contact with matter, it will create a massive explosion – large enough to destroy the entire Vatican City.

Dr. White was introduced by Dr. Leon Lederman, Nobel Laureate and Director Emeritus of Fermilab (a particle accelerator facility in the Chicago suburbs). Dr. Lederman gave us a brief quiz to test our scientific knowledge and spoke briefly about the need for scientific literacy in the American public. He is also the author of The God Particle, a book referenced in Angels & Demons that explains the elusive Higgs boson particle, which is believed to be the particle that gives mass to everything.

The lecture aimed to answer the question: Is the science in Angels & Demons right? And, as with many books that blur the lines between science and fiction, the answer was yes and no. Antimatter is a real scientific phenomenon that scientists around the world are studying at places like CERN and Fermilab. It is found when protons that have been accelerated to very high speeds collide. The basic concept behind antimatter is that the particles of antimatter are the opposites of those found in matter. For example, the opposite of the electron would be a small positive particle, called a positron. When matter and antimatter interact, they do in fact create a tremendous explosion. One quarter of a gram of antimatter reacted with a quarter gram of matter would be enough to destroy the Vatican. The book got all of these things right.

Where the book begins to diverge from reality is actually in the details of the production of antimatter. Fermilab is currently the largest producer of antimatter and they only produce a few nanograms each year. (CERN’s Large Hadron Collider will be able to produce more once it is fully operational, but this is not currently the case.) According to Dr. White, it would take Fermilab over 109 million years to develop a quarter gram of antimatter. Another flaw in the plot is that, currently, no one is producing all of the particles needed for a stable mass of antimatter to form – they’re only creating certain particles because they are only colliding protons. Furthermore, in the movie, the antimatter is stored in small, moveable containers that can be easily stolen and hidden. In reality, antimatter is stored in large, complex tanks that frequently lose particles in small explosions.

So, antimatter exists, but there isn’t much of it and we don’t fully understand it yet. We don’t make enough to use it as a power source or for rocket propulsion, but we make enough to study it. Does antimatter have any practical uses? Yes. It’s called positron emission topography, more commonly referred to as a PET scan, a common medical procedure. PET scans make use of radioactive decay, one type of which emits positrons which medical imagers can detect to make pictures of active tissues in the body. There are still many things to be discovered and understood about anitmatter. Perhaps in the future, there will be more practical uses for antimatter discovered and our scientists might begin to unlock the secrets of mass or the laws of physics that antimatter follow (which are slightly different from the laws of physics as we know them). Whatever the case, the world is in need of more brilliant physicists like Leon Lederman and Chris White.

You can learn more about particle physics and watch the lecture by Chris White online: http://www.iit.edu/publications/iittoday/angels/.  I am interested in hearing your thoughts about the lecture.

Thanks,

Samantha Staley

The 2009 IIT Commencement will be held on Saturday, May 16, 2009 on IIT’s Main Campus. This year's commencement speaker is Marissa Mayer. Marissa leads Google's efforts on search products — web search, images, news, books, products, maps, — and other consumer-facing initiatives such as Google Toolbar, Google Desktop, Google Health, Google Labs, and more. Her contributions have included designing and developing Google's search interface, internationalizing the site to over 100 languages, and launching more than 100 features and products on Google.com.

Several patents have been filed on her work in artificial intelligence and interface design. Google's first female engineer, Marissa joined in 1999 and led the user interface and web server teams at that time. 



Concurrently with her full-time work at Google, Marissa has taught introductory computer programming classes at Stanford University, where she earned both her B.S. in Symbolic Systems and her M.S. in Computer Science. Stanford has recognized her with the Centennial Teaching Award and the Forsythe Award for her outstanding contribution to undergraduate education.

She has been named as one of the "50 Most Powerful Women" by Fortune, and Newsweek has listed her among the "10 Tech Leaders of the Future."

Provost Alan Cramb yesterday announced the appointment of Natacha DePaola as dean of Armour College of Engineering. DePaola joins IIT from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), where she has been chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering since 2005 and on the faculty since 1994. Before RPI, DePaola was assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Northwestern University.

"Natacha DePaola brings the experience, energy, and innovative thinking needed to continue Armour Colleges tradition as an internationally recognized engineering school," said President Anderson. "Her demonstrated success in maintaining excellent undergraduate programs while growing graduate and research studies, and her commitment to developing interdisciplinary opportunities, make her a perfect fit for IIT."

"We are very excited to welcome Dr. DePaola to IIT," said Cramb. "Her experience with strategic development will be invaluable to IIT and Armour as the university prepares to launch its new strategic plan this summer." Cramb also extended praise to IIT College of Science and Letters Dean Russell Betts, who served as chair of the Armour dean search committee.

DePaola received a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Universidad Simon Bolivar in 1984, and a Master of Science in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1987. She completed her Ph.D. degree in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (1991) and Postdoctoral training at Columbia University (1992). DePaola received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER), is a Frontiers Alumna of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

July 20-31, 2009 (Application Deadline: June 1, 2009)

"Experiment in Architecture" is a two-week, non-residential summer program designed to introduce high school students to the profession of architecture. Students will tour Chicago, complete a series of design projects, attend lectures by IIT faculty, participate in discussions with local architects, and work in the college's model shop and multi-media lab. The course will assist participants in making an informed decision about pursuing an architectural education and career.

The program includes field trips to Chicago's architectural landmarks and architectural offices; instruction in freehand sketching with an emphasis on interpreting and visualizing the world around us; studio classes with an emphasis on design through 2-d representations and 3-d constructions utilizing computer imaging and model building; and a session on developing and focusing career plans. The program concludes with an exhibition of student work and a reception for students and their families. For more details, please go here.