Thayer School

Professor Al Heckbert contributes the following items to this month's column: SamWerner '59 and Neil Greene '59 are both at the University of Michigan studying for their doctorates, Sam in Nuclear Engineering and Neil in Mechanical Engineering. Bill Davidow '57 was awarded a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering by Stanford and is presently working as a mathematician for General Electric in Sunnyvale, Calif. JimPicken '59 and Jorge Llacer '62 are both studying at Stanford for Ph.D.'s in Electrical Engineering. Cai Raber '60 is with Bendix m Ann Arbor.

The National Science Foundation has just announced a $110,000 grant to the Thayer School to continue work on the lonospheric Project under Dr. Millett Morgan. Last summer and fall Cutting Johnson '33, BlanchardPratt '47, and Lou Semprebon journeyed to the Fiji Islands to observe ionospheric effects of the AEC Fishbowl Tests at Johnston Island. In November, Millett Morgan went to Honolulu to participate in the write-up of these observations and just recently was in California for further discussion of the results of these atomic tests. Major Foster Blough has recently joined the lonospheric Research Group to serve as administrative assistant.

The Thayer School faculty and the members of the sophomore class enrolled in Engineering Science gathered together recently at an evening dinner followed by talks by Dean Tribus and Dr. Horace Trent. Dean Tribus discussed the new engineering curriculum at Dartmouth and engineering education in general. Dr. Trent, who is studying the Thayer School curricula under a Ford Foundation Grant, gave a short and fascinating talk on the aerodynamics of the bull-whip, illustrating his talk with demonstrations and high-speed movies. For your information, the crack of the whip is due to shock-waves arising from the supersonic speed of the tip of the whip, and not to the slap of leather-on-leather!