Summer Science Program
Encyclopedia
Celestial mechanics
Celestial mechanics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the motions of celestial objects. The field applies principles of physics, historically classical mechanics, to astronomical objects such as stars and planets to produce ephemeris data. Orbital mechanics is a subfield which focuses on...
. Students study astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, spherical trigonometry
Spherical trigonometry
Spherical trigonometry is a branch of spherical geometry which deals with polygons on the sphere and the relationships between the sides and the angles...
, and calculus
Calculus
Calculus is a branch of mathematics focused on limits, functions, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. This subject constitutes a major part of modern mathematics education. It has two major branches, differential calculus and integral calculus, which are related by the fundamental theorem...
while working to take photographic plates of an asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
, measure its position, and calculate its orbit
Orbit
In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...
. However, due to advances in modern science, SSP has moved on to using CCD
Charge-coupled device
A charge-coupled device is a device for the movement of electrical charge, usually from within the device to an area where the charge can be manipulated, for example conversion into a digital value. This is achieved by "shifting" the signals between stages within the device one at a time...
imaging to find their asteroid. The measured asteroid coordinates (not the orbit results) are submitted to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
The Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is one of the largest and most diverse astrophysical institutions in the world, where scientists carry out a broad program of research in astronomy, astrophysics, earth and space sciences, and science education...
.
A large number of alumni from the program eventually matriculate at prestigious institutions such as Caltech, MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
, Stanford and Ivy League
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
schools.
Established in 1959 at The Thacher School
The Thacher School
The Thacher School is a co-educational independent boarding school located on 425 acres of hillside overlooking the Ojai Valley in Ojai, California, United States. Founded in 1889 as a boys' school, it is now the oldest co-ed boarding school in California. Girls were first admitted in 1977. The...
, the Summer Science Program now takes place at two locations, New Mexico Tech in Socorro, New Mexico
Socorro, New Mexico
Socorro is a city in Socorro County in the U.S. state of New Mexico. It stands in the Rio Grande Valley at an elevation of . The population was 9,051 at the 2010 census...
, and Westmont College
Westmont College
Westmont offers 26 majors, including: alternative major, art, biology, chemistry, communication studies, computer science, economics and business, education program, engineering physics, English, history, European studies, kinesiology, liberal studies, mathematics, modern languages , music,...
in Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
(northwest of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
). The curriculum is very similar at the two campuses. The main curriculum is the same, but the individual academic directors can vary the curriculum at each campus somewhat.
History
The Summer Science Program is one of the oldest programs of its kind in the world, and the only one managed and largely funded by its own alumni.In 1959, officials at Thacher and Caltech were concerned that the country's top high school students were not being adequately informed and inspired about careers in the physical sciences. They decided to create an intense summer program to challenge such students and inspire them with a taste of "real science." They received assistance from a number of leading California colleges, including Caltech, UCLA, Claremont Colleges
Claremont Colleges
The Claremont Colleges are a prestigious American consortium of five undergraduate and two graduate schools of higher education located in Claremont, California, a city east of downtown Los Angeles...
, and Stanford. Financial support came from Hughes Aircraft
Hughes Aircraft
Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded in 1932 by Howard Hughes in Culver City, California as a division of Hughes Tool Company...
.
SSP was taught in its first year by Dr. Paul Routly. He continued with SSP until 1962. In 1960, Dr. George Abell
George Ogden Abell
George Ogden Abell was an astronomer at UCLA. He worked as a research astronomer, teacher, administrator, popularizer of science and education, and skeptic. Abell received his B.S. , M.S. and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology...
joined the program for his first of more than 20 summers at SSP.
The first year, SSP had 26 students. Less than two years after the launch of Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1 ) was the first artificial satellite to be put into Earth's orbit. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. The unanticipated announcement of Sputnik 1s success precipitated the Sputnik crisis in the United States and ignited the Space...
and the start of the Space Race
Space Race
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
, excitement about astronomy was high. The students used data from the "Russian ephemeris" (Ephemyeredi Mahlikh Planyet) to find asteroids to photograph, measured the positions, and submitted the data to the Minor Planet Center
Minor Planet Center
The Minor Planet Center operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory , which is part of the Center for Astrophysics along with the Harvard College Observatory ....
at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Given the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
fervor, the students were excited to find when they calculated the orbit of 9 Metis
9 Metis
9 Metis is one of the larger main-belt asteroids. It is composed of silicates and metallic nickel-iron, and may be the core remnant of a large asteroid that was destroyed by an ancient collision...
that their data resulted in a significant correction to the Russian ephemeris.
In 1991, the National Academies' Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications observed that "All participants go on to college. About 37 percent of the pre-1985 graduates are now working in science and medicine, and 34 percent in engineering, mathematics, and computer science (including the founder
Mitch Kapor
Mitchell David Kapor is the founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3. He is also a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and was the first chair of the Mozilla Foundation...
of Lotus Development Corporation)."
A significant threat to the continuation of SSP came in 1999. The Thacher School decided to make significant changes to its entire program, and SSP no longer fit. 1999 would be the last year the program was held at Thacher.
A group of SSP alumni saved the program in the form of a new nonprofit corporation, Summer Science Program, Inc. They found funding, largely from the alumni community, and they found a new site for the program. Beginning in 2000, SSP was held at the Happy Valley School, located just across the Ojai Valley from The Thacher School. (In 2007, Happy Valley School was renamed Besant Hill School.)
The alumni rescue was so successful that they soon began looking to expand the program. In 2003 a second campus opened at New Mexico Tech in Socorro with the support of New Mexico Tech, Los Alamos
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...
and Sandia national laboratories, and others.
In 2010, the California campus moved to Westmont College
Westmont College
Westmont offers 26 majors, including: alternative major, art, biology, chemistry, communication studies, computer science, economics and business, education program, engineering physics, English, history, European studies, kinesiology, liberal studies, mathematics, modern languages , music,...
in Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
.
The program now takes 36 students each year at each campus.
A measuring engine once used by the famous astronomer Edwin Hubble
Edwin Hubble
Edwin Powell Hubble was an American astronomer who profoundly changed the understanding of the universe by confirming the existence of galaxies other than the Milky Way - our own galaxy...
at the Mt. Wilson Observatory was employed at the California campus.
Distinguished guest speakers have included Maarten Schmidt
Maarten Schmidt
Maarten Schmidt is a Dutch astronomer who measured the distances of quasars.Born in Groningen, The Netherlands, Schmidt studied with Jan Hendrik Oort. He earned his Ph.D. degree from Leiden Observatory in 1956....
, who has done pioneering work in quasars; the late Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics...
, a Nobel laureate in physics; James Randi
James Randi
James Randi is a Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic best known as a challenger of paranormal claims and pseudoscience. Randi is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation...
, magician and debunker of pseudoscience; Mitch Kapor
Mitch Kapor
Mitchell David Kapor is the founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3. He is also a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and was the first chair of the Mozilla Foundation...
, founder of Lotus Development; and Paul MacCready
Paul MacCready
Paul B. MacCready, Jr. was an American aeronautical engineer. He was the founder of AeroVironment and the designer of the human-powered aircraft that won the Kremer prize...
, creator of the Gossamer Condor
Gossamer Condor
-See also:-Further reading:*Morton Grosser. Gossamer Odyssey: The Triumph of Human-Powered Flight. MBI Press, 2004; Dover Publications, Inc., 1991; Houghton Mifflin Co., 1981*Morton Grosser. On Gossamer Wings. York Custom Graphics, 1982...
and Gossamer Albatross
Gossamer Albatross
-See also:-Further reading:*Allen, Bryan. Winged Victory of "Gossamer Albatross". National Geographic, November 1979, vol. 156, n. 5, p. 640-651...
.
Primarily juniors (rising seniors) are admitted, but a few sophomores are selected each year. SSP 2010 enrolled 5 sophomores out of 62 applying, and 67 juniors out of 465 applying.
Notable alumni
| Name | SSP Year | Noted for |
|---|---|---|
| 1959 | Winner in 1999 of the Society for Psychophysiological Research's award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychophysiology, known for his work on the electrophysiology of selective attention. | |
| 1959 | Pioneer in RAID RAID RAID is a storage technology that combines multiple disk drive components into a logical unit... storage systems |
|
| 1960 | Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court; political activist | |
| 1960 | Co-winner in 2010 of the million dollar Kavli Prize Kavli Prize The Kavli Prize was established in 2005 through a joint venture between the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, and The Kavli Foundation... in Astrophysics for his work on segmented telescope design |
|
| 1961 | Director of the Griffith Observatory Griffith Observatory Griffith Observatory is in Los Angeles, California, United States. Sitting on the south-facing slope of Mount Hollywood in L.A.'s Griffith Park, it commands a view of the Los Angeles Basin, including downtown Los Angeles to the southeast, Hollywood to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest... |
|
| 1962 | Pioneer in computational linguistics; Chief Scientist and a Principal Researcher at the Powerset division of Microsoft Bing; Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009... |
|
| 1964 | Winner in 1986 of the Turing Award Turing Award The Turing Award, in full The ACM A.M. Turing Award, is an annual award given by the Association for Computing Machinery to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community. The contributions should be of lasting and major technical importance to the... for work on computer algorithms and data structures; co-inventor of both splay tree Splay tree A splay tree is a self-adjusting binary search tree with the additional property that recently accessed elements are quick to access again. It performs basic operations such as insertion, look-up and removal in O amortized time. For many sequences of nonrandom operations, splay trees perform... s and Fibonacci heap Fibonacci heap In computer science, a Fibonacci heap is a heap data structure consisting of a collection of trees. It has a better amortized running time than a binomial heap. Fibonacci heaps were developed by Michael L. Fredman and Robert E. Tarjan in 1984 and first published in a scientific journal in 1987... s; senior fellow at Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including... |
|
| 1966 | Co-founder of Lotus Development Corporation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States... , and the Open Source Applications Foundation Open Source Applications Foundation The Open Source Applications Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in 2002 by Mitch Kapor whose purpose is to effect widespread adoption of free software/open-source software.-OSAF Mission:The mission of the OSAF is stated this way:... ; the first chair of the Mozilla Foundation Mozilla Foundation The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that exists to support and provide leadership for the open source Mozilla project. The organization sets the policies that govern development, operates key infrastructure and controls trademarks and other intellectual property... ; former member of the Board of Trustees of SSP |
|
| 1966 | Mathematician known for work on knots Knot (mathematics) In mathematics, a knot is an embedding of a circle in 3-dimensional Euclidean space, R3, considered up to continuous deformations . A crucial difference between the standard mathematical and conventional notions of a knot is that mathematical knots are closed—there are no ends to tie or untie on a... and the Riemann Hypothesis Riemann hypothesis In mathematics, the Riemann hypothesis, proposed by , is a conjecture about the location of the zeros of the Riemann zeta function which states that all non-trivial zeros have real part 1/2... ; fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the... |
|
| 1966 | Chair of Astronomy at the University of Michigan University of Michigan The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan... ; codiscoverer in 1992 of the supermassive black hole Supermassive black hole A supermassive black hole is the largest type of black hole in a galaxy, in the order of hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses. Most, and possibly all galaxies, including the Milky Way, are believed to contain supermassive black holes at their centers.Supermassive black holes have... in NGC 3115 NGC 3115 NGC 3115 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Sextans. The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on February 22, 1787. At about 32 million light-years away from us it is several times bigger than our Milky Way... |
|
| 1967 | Cisco Cisco Cisco may refer to:Companies:*Cisco Systems, a computer networking company* Certis CISCO, corporatised entity of the former Commercial and Industrial Security Corporation in Singapore... Fellow, who has contributed to the IEEE 802.1 IEEE 802.1 IEEE 802.1 is a working group of the IEEE 802 project of the IEEE Standards Association.It is concerned with:* 802 LAN/MAN architecture* internetworking among 802 LANs, MANs and other wide area networks* 802 Link Security* 802 overall network management... Working Group since 1996 |
|
| 1969 | Co-founder of Qualcomm Qualcomm Qualcomm is an American global telecommunication corporation that designs, manufactures and markets digital wireless telecommunications products and services based on its code division multiple access technology and other technologies. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, USA... |
|
| 1970 | Founder of Research Affiliates; author | |
| 1970 | Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China Affairs | |
| 1973 | Co-founder and chairman of Extreme Networks Extreme Networks Extreme Networks, founded in 1996, is a publicly listed company that designs, builds, and installs Ethernet network solutions for enterprise and Carrier Class networks.-Corporate History:Extreme Networks is located in Santa Clara, California... |
|
| 1974 | Pioneer in the CG and digital effects industry; co-founder of Pacific Data Images Pacific Data Images Pacific Data Images is a computer animation production company that was bought by DreamWorks SKG. The company is now known as PDI/DreamWorks and is half of DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc., the public company formed by merging PDI and the feature animation division of DreamWorks.-History:PDI was... and Cloudpic Global; member of the editorial board of the journal of graphics, gpu, and game tools Journal of Graphics Tools The Journal of Graphics Tools, abbreviated jgt, is a peer-reviewed research journal that focuses on computer graphics. It has been published quarterly by A K Peters, Ltd. since 1996... |
|
| 1975 | Head of the Physics Dept. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in... |
|
| 1975 | Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Council of Economic Advisers The Council of Economic Advisers is an agency within the Executive Office of the President that advises the President of the United States on economic policy... under President George W. Bush George W. Bush George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000.... |
|
| 1975 | Director of the Space Policy Institute at the Elliott School of International Affairs Elliott School of International Affairs The Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University is a professional school in international relations. It is located in the heart of Washington, D.C... , The George Washington University; member of the Board of Trustees of SSP |
|
| 1976 | Chief Investment Officer, Fixed Income at Trust Company of the West aka TCW, member of the team that earned Morningstar, Inc. Morningstar, Inc. Morningstar, Inc. is an independent investment research company based in Chicago, Illinois, USA.-Businesses:Morningstar, Inc. is a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The company offers an extensive line of products and services for... 's Fixed Income Manager of the Year for 2005 |
|
| 1977 | Astronomer Astronomer An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using... who searches for extrasolar planet Extrasolar planet An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System. A total of such planets have been identified as of . It is now known that a substantial fraction of stars have planets, including perhaps half of all Sun-like stars... s; co-discoverer of more exoplanets than anyone else. |
|
| 1977 | Chair of the mathematics department at Stanford University Stanford University The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San... ; founder of the Stanford University Math Camp |
|
| 1977 | Winner of the Scripps National Spelling Bee Scripps National Spelling Bee The Scripps National Spelling Bee is a highly competitive annual spelling bee in the United States, with participants from other countries as well. It is run on a not-for-profit basis by The E. W... in 1973; former member of the Board of Trustees of SSP |
|
| 1977 | Founder of Wall Street Analytics; political activist; 1994 candidate for Governor of California Governor of California The Governor of California is the chief executive of the California state government, whose responsibilities include making annual State of the State addresses to the California State Legislature, submitting the budget, and ensuring that state laws are enforced... |
|
| 1979 | Elected fellow of the American Physical Society American Physical Society The American Physical Society is the world's second largest organization of physicists, behind the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. The Society publishes more than a dozen scientific journals, including the world renowned Physical Review and Physical Review Letters, and organizes more than 20... for contributions to the development of analytical instrumentation |
|
| 2004 | Won the $100,000 grand prize at the 2004 Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology | |
| 2005 | Won the $100,000 first prize at the 2007 Intel Science Talent Search Intel Science Talent Search The Intel Science Talent Search , known for its first 57 years as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search is a research-based science competition in the United States for high school seniors. It has been referred to as "the nation's oldest and most prestigious" science competition. In his speech... ; namesake of main belt asteroid 21561 Masterman 21561 Masterman 21561 Masterman is a main-belt asteroid discovered on August 28, 1998 by the Lincoln Laboratory Near-Earth Asteroid Research Team at Socorro.... |
|
| 2008 | Won the $100,000 first prize at the 2010 Intel Science Talent Search Intel Science Talent Search The Intel Science Talent Search , known for its first 57 years as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search is a research-based science competition in the United States for high school seniors. It has been referred to as "the nation's oldest and most prestigious" science competition. In his speech... |
Astronomical Work
.jpg)
Right ascension
Right ascension is the astronomical term for one of the two coordinates of a point on the celestial sphere when using the equatorial coordinate system. The other coordinate is the declination.-Explanation:...
and declination
Declination
In astronomy, declination is one of the two coordinates of the equatorial coordinate system, the other being either right ascension or hour angle. Declination in astronomy is comparable to geographic latitude, but projected onto the celestial sphere. Declination is measured in degrees north and...
) at the exact time the image was taken. The series of positions as the asteroid moves across the sky allows the student to fit an approximate orbit to the asteroid. The measured asteroid coordinates (not the calculated orbital elements
Orbital elements
Orbital elements are the parameters required to uniquely identify a specific orbit. In celestial mechanics these elements are generally considered in classical two-body systems, where a Kepler orbit is used...
) are submitted to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
The Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is one of the largest and most diverse astrophysical institutions in the world, where scientists carry out a broad program of research in astronomy, astrophysics, earth and space sciences, and science education...
.
Over the decades SSP students have done their orbit determination calculations on mechanical calculators (1960s), then electronic calculators (1970s), then "mini-computers" (1980s), then personal computers (1990s and 2000s). In recent years they write their orbit determination programs in the Python programming language
Python (programming language)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
, employing the Gaussian method
Orbit determination
Orbit determination is a branch of astronomy specialised in calculating, and hence predicting, the orbits of objects such as moons, planets, and spacecraft . These orbits could be orbiting the Earth, or other bodies...
.