The Bruce Medalists: Wallace Sargent

<body bgcolor="#9CCEFF"> <script language="JavaScript">  </script> <font size="+5"><b><a href="../Intro.html" target="main"><font color="#CC6600">The Bruce Medalists</font></a></b></font> <p>   </p> <table width="100%" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="0" > <tr><td width = "33%"> </td> <td width = "34%" align="center"><a href="sargent.jpg"><img src="sargentSml.jpg" alt="" height="119" width="91" border="2"></a></td> <td width="33%" height=middle><font size=1>Photo 2006, courtesy Prof. Sargent</font></td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3" align="center"><font size="+2"><b><font color="#CC6600">Wallace Leslie William Sargent</font></b></font></td> <tr><td width="33%"><b>15 February 1935</b></td> <td align="center" width="34%"><b>1994 Bruce Medalist</b></td> <td align="right"><b></b></td> </tr> </table> <p>Wal Sargent was the first person from his high school to attend a university. He studied fluid mechanics at the <b><a href="http://h2.ph.man.ac.uk/~gdl/physman/tradition.html">University of Manchester</a></b>, but with an eye toward applying it to theoretical problems in astrophysics. He has spent nearly all of his career at the <b><a href="http://admissions.caltech.edu/about/history">California Institute of Technology</a></b>, where he has become a spectroscopist, observing peculiar stars, stars in the galactic halo, and peculiar galaxies and quasars. He is particularly renowned for investigations of <b><a href="http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~wws/qsoabs.html">quasar absorption lines</a></b>, which he now does with the <b><a href="http://www.astro.caltech.edu/mirror/keck/">Keck</a></b>, <b><a href="http://www.ociw.edu/magellan">Magellan</a></b>, <b><a href="http://chandra.harvard.edu/">Chandra</a></b>, and <b><a href="http://www.stsci.edu/hst/">Hubble Space Telescope</a></b>s. He and his colleagues have contributed greatly to our knowledge of the intergalactic medium. As director of the <b><a href="http://www.astro.caltech.edu/observatories/palomar/">Palomar Observatory</a></b> from 1997-2000, he supervised use of the <b><a href="http://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/hale.html">Hale Telescope</a></b> to conduct the <b><a href="http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~wws/norris.html">Norris Survey</a></b> of large-scale structure in the distribution of galaxies at moderate redshifts and the <b><a href="http://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/sot.html">Samuel Oschin Telescope</a></b> to conduct the <b><a href="http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~wws/poss2.html">Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey</a></b>. His <b><a href="http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~wws/agn.html">surveys of active galactic nuclei</a></b> have produced evidence that many contain massive black holes. He has also worked on the isotropy of the universe by studying angular fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation.</p> <p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Personal Web Page</font></FONT></b><br><a href="http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~wws/">At Caltech</a><br> </p> <p> <b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Presentation of Bruce medal</font></FONT></b><br> unpublished</p> <p> <b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Other awards</font></FONT></b><br> American Astronomical Society, <a href="http://www.aas.org/grants/awards.html#warner">Helen B. Warner Prize</a>, 1969; <a href="http://www.aas.org/grants/awards.html#russell">Henry Norris Russell Lectureship</a>, 2001.<br> American Institute of Physics & American Astronomical Society, <a href="http://www.aas.org/grants/awards.html#heineman">Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics</a>, 1991<br> Institut d’Astrophysicque de Paris, <a href="http://www.iap.fr/English/News/Archives/2009/HeadlineArticle/Sargent/Medal_Sargent.html">IAP Medal</a>, 2009.<br> </p> <p> <b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Biographical materials</font></FONT></b><br> Sargent, Wallace, interview with Alan Lightman, in Lightman, Alan & Roberta Brawer, <i>Origins: The Lives and Worlds of Modern Cosmologists</i> (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK, 1990), pp. 120-35.<br> Sargent, Wallace, <a href="http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~wws/vita.html">Curriculum Vitae</a> </p>  <p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Portraits</font></FONT></b><br> <a href="Sargent1.jpg">An earlier portrait, courtesy Caltech</a><br> <a href="http://photos.aip.org/">AIP Center for History of Physics</a><br> <a href="http://www.astro.clemson.edu/NucleoArchive/">Clemson University Photo Archive in Nuclear Astrophysics</a> </p> <p><b><font size="+1"><font color="#CC6600">Named after him</font></FONT></b><br> <a href="http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/MPNames.html">Minor Planet #11758 Sargent</a><br> <br> </p> <p><b><font size="+1"><a href="SargentRefs.html" target="_self">More references</a></font></b></p> <div align="center"><p><b><a href="../Intro.html" target="main">The Bruce Medalists</a></b></p></div> <p> <table width="100%"> <tr> <td valign="TOP"><font size="-1">Please send comments, additions, corrections, and questions to<br> <a href="MAILTO:joe.tenn@sonoma.edu"> joe.tenn@sonoma.edu</a><br></font></td> <td align="RIGHT" valign="TOP"><font size="-1"><i> <a href="http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/people/faculty/tenn/">JST</a> </i><br> <a href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html">2010-05-17</a></font></td> </tr> </table> </p> </body>