Ryerson Astronomical Society (RAS) in 1950s

As a science major student, I always learned about history of science, specifically physics and astrophysics. For example, Galileo created the first telescope, or Newton invented Newton's three laws of motion, then Einstein found Relativity that contradicted with almost everything Newton said. "Why do we have to learn Newton's three laws then?" I often asked myself why they have to teach about the history of science since it will never help me solve Schrödinger equation equations or any physics equations.

It is not until I learned that these discoveries did not happen far away from where my classes are that I realized how amazing it felt to be a part of the big community of science. Milikan's oil drop experiment occurred in the basement of where I took my first-year Calculus, or Enrico Fermi engineered the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction happened at the library where I often cramped my final exam studies until the last minute. 

Prof. Vandervoort gave a talk on the history of RAS on 1/27/2014

Ryerson Astronomical Society (RAS) is another example of how amazing and fascinating my opportunity I have as an undergraduate student who attended University of Chicago. I joined the astronomy club my first year once I learned about it from the RSO fair (Recognized Student Organization) with a goal to simply be able to use a telescope to look at stars when I got some free time. What I did not expect to get from the club is all the history that tied with it. I only heard a little bit of history about the club and the department of Astronomy and Astrophysics when I visited Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin which is owned by the university. Not until couple weeks ago when Professor Peter Vandervoort came to give a talk about the history of the club and the university that I learned a bigger picture of its history. What I would like to share my amazing experience here to others who want to learn more about astronomy in Chicago. 

Prof. Vantervoort started the story with the context of his time when he was an undergrad at the university. It was back in 1953 which is just after the World War II ended couple years ago. During the war, most people did not really have a focus to do something else except developing technology such that we could win the war, especially nuclear technology at the university. The college back then was also very different. With the vision of our fifth president, Robert Hutchin, every undergrad had to take 42 core classes. In other words, there were no majors for anyone to specialize in some subjects. Everyone learned the same thing for four years. That was why RAS became an important part of college experience because if you wanted to learn about astronomy as an undergrad, the only way you could do it was through the club. And main activity during those time was the same one that we have today which is going to Yerkes. Through the club, students had a chance to get to know many astrophysics professors who often spent their time in Yerkes. I would like to spend some time talking about three different professors who were really close to the club and also had a great discovery in their own fields.

Portraits of (Left) Prof. Chandrasekhar (Center) Prof. WW Morgan and (Right) Prof. Gerard Kuiper

1. Prof. Chandrasekhar: a Nobel prize in Physics in 1983 on the topic of the structure and the evolution of stars. He was famous for Chandrasekhar limit which tells us about how much mass the star needs to have to become neutron stars or black hole. He was also an academic advisor for Prof. Vandervoort.

2. Prof. W W Morgan with the discovery of stellar classification based on their spectral characteristic. And the system that they used was the Morgan–Keenan (MKK) system using the letters O, B, A, F, G, K, and M. If you have learned about astrophysics, these random sequence of letters are one of the first thing you will learn.

3. Prof. Kuiper with, of course, the discovery of Kuiper Belt which are objects similar to asteroids but orbit outside the orbit of Neptune. He was also an advisor of Carl Sagan.

This bring us to the last person that I would like to mention as a part of the history of astronomy at University of Chicago, Carl Sagan. I did not know Carl Sagan until I came to RAS. But after talking to more people who are interested in science, I started to understand how popular and influential he was as a science popularizer to get everyone excited about science and astronomy. Carl Sagan's Ph.D thesis was of the topic of our moon and venus, specifically possibility of organic compounds on the moon and radiation balance on Venus. But he was known for one of the most popular science television shows, 'Cosmos' and the novel which was adapted to a film called Contact. However, the most exciting part about Carl Sagan, in my opinion, was not what he discovered or what shows he made, but what he did when he was an undergrad at the university which was becoming the president of RAS at that time. Knowing that Carl Sagan was once our club president was one of the biggest surprise for me and made me want to be even more involved with the club.

Carl Sagan with one of his famous quotes

Now, I am currently a president of RAS and I am grateful to be a part of this long fascinating history. My goal is to promote the club, so that more people on campus know and want to learn more about astronomy. Finally, learning science might feel like just trying to understand how the nature and the universe truly works. In fact, learning science in high school or even in college is just a step bring us closer to the frontier of science so that we can be a part of this bigger scientific community and ultimately contribute new knowledge to the community.