Robert A Rosenbaum
Fund
2005 Shackleton Symposium: A tribute to Einstein’s contribution to modern life
DVD’s, CD’s, GPS, and Einstein. Which of these has nothing to do with the others? Einstein, right? Wrong!
All of these modern day items are related. In fact, it was Einstein’s work in a single year, 1905, that underlies each of them. DVD’s and CD’s are based on the photoelectric effect, and GPS accuracy depends on the Theory of Relativity, both of which were published by Einstein during his “Miracle Year."
PIMMS was fortunate to have a renowned Einstein scholar as the lecturer for this fall’s Shackleton Memorial Lecture. For the past thirty years, Martin Klein, Professor Emeritus at Yale University, has been pursuing studies of the history of 19th and 20th century physics. His research has dealt with the interrelated developments of quantum mechanics and statistical thermodynamics, and has usually focused on the work of individual physicists. As the Senior Editor of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, his current work concentrates on the evolution of Einstein's thinking on many of the problems of modern physics.
The Shackleton Memorial Lecture, held annually in memory of Robert Shackleton, late Associate Director of PIMMS, was held in the auditorium of the Exley Science Center at Wesleyan University on October 26.
The Friends of Robert A. Rosenbaum Endowment Fund
In welcoming PIMMS as a University program, Wesleyan’s central administration proposed, in June 2004, the establishment of an endowment for PIMMS that would provide an underpinning for the Program and the income from which would facilitate multi-year planning. John W. Baird, ‘38, an emeritus trustee of the University and long-time friend and colleague of Bob Rosenbaum, immediately pledged $1,000,000 as a challenge grant for the new endowment, and K. Tucker Andersen, ‘63, a major in Wesleyan’s College of Quantitative Studies, made an Andersen Family pledge of $250,000 as a response to that challenge.
Together with the donations by 62 Wesleyan alumni/ae and other PIMMS supporters --totaling nearly $150,000--we have reached 70% of our $2 million goal for the Endowment Fund. –MAZ