Comments on: Wal Sargent

By: Charlie Petit

Charlie Petit — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 16:09:09 +0000

Wal Sargent was also a generous and helpful source and lucid explainer for news reporters who rung him up for a quick quote or extended interview. Years ago he invited me for an all-night run at Palomar. His grad student (postdoc?), the then unknown to us science writers Alex Filippenko, was in the control room with his wit and effusiveness already fully formed.
Imagine my surprise to learn that Wal, this eminent and good-humored Brit, was a foaming baseball fan. I cannot remember his team, alas.. Yankees?

By: Craig Hogan

Craig Hogan — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 01:51:28 +0000

I have many wonderful memories of Wal that I’ll always treasure. Many of them consist of similar hilarious scenes of Wal in a pub garden near Cambridge holding forth with a pint of Abbott, poking fun at privilege in colorful dialect. But my favorite was a night spent at Palomar with Wal doing quasar spectroscopy with Alec Boksenberg and his machine in tow, working through a rolodex of secret QSO coordinates. Wal talked all night as he worked, and somehow conveyed at the same time his usual irreverence about colleagues, his sense of awe about the cosmos, and his deep feeling about the Hale telescope as a sacred place.

He was one of the great astronomers of our time, and a great friend.

By: Al Wootten

Al Wootten — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 00:56:58 +0000

Sorry to hear that Wal is no longer with us. He was a gifted conversationalist and original thinker, whether the subject be spectroscopy, baseball or scotch. Best wishes to Anneila and their family.

By: Kim Venn

Kim Venn — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 18:14:18 +0000

I’m so sad to learn of Wal’s passing. He was not only a great astronomer, but also a great friend to his many colleagues and collaborators. I’ll miss him and his sense of humour terribly.

By: Lutvo Kurić

Lutvo Kurić — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 21:34:39 +0000

The Higgs boson is the particle. There are other particles. These particles are subatomic empirical pictures masses. However, the same we do not reveal the essence given reality. Mendeleyev was once lined the chemical elements in the table. However, he discovered a digital image of a table that explains the essence of the creation of chemical elements. Genetics has revealed empirical picture of the processes in this teaching, however, did not disclose the algorithms that determine the essence of these processes. These algorithms have been recently discovered. The Higgs boson is detected with the methods of empiricism. Philosophy tells us that reality is never as it seems we see. He does not look the way we say it empirics. I think that CERN project uses outdated methods of research. Results of this study will give us an explanation for the given reality.

By: Doug McElroy

Doug McElroy — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 03:02:06 +0000

He was most kind and helpful to feckless undergraduates. He could not only do top-notch research, he could even teach well.

To many of us, he was a legend. And a legend never dies.

By: Nick Woolf

Nick Woolf — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:31:29 +0000

I met Wal on our first day as undergraduates at the Physics Department at Manchester.
We went through both undergraduate work, and graduate school in Astronomy together.
During my graduate work I needed to make a measurement at the solar telescope at Dunsink, in Ireland, and so I invited Wal to help me. At that time he was studying to be a theoretician.
But, when we got back, Wal was of the opinion that observational work was not that difficult.
So when Franz Kahn came back from Cal Tech, and told Wal that Jesse Greenstein needed someone to help with the Abundance Project, Wal thought he was quite up to this work. He went to Cal Tech. He became an observational astronomer, and he never regretted it.
He will miss being there to see Machester United winning the Premier League this year, as
he and I are both sure it will. We have been lucky to have Wal with us,

By: Discover Magazine Blog – Science « Annette J Dunlea Irish Author's Literary Blog

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 19:46:13 +0000

[...] Wal Sargent [...]

By: Elizabeth Griffin

Elizabeth Griffin — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 14:02:06 +0000

The region of England where Wal grew up is characterized by a strong loyalty and by a directness of speech. Wal applied that to his science, able to get quickly to the heart of a matter and to stand firmly by his ideas and convictions. That ability, coupled with a very genuine modesty and ‘niceness’, helped make him one of Caltech’s ‘greats’.

Yet Wal was not necessarily right every time. He and Anneila were in Cambridge (UK) when their first child was born. Somehow Wal had anticipated that his heir would be a boy, and he freely admitted to being not only very surprised but also completely delighted at discovering that he was actually father to a daughter.

By: Phillip Helbig

Phillip Helbig — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:51:11 +0000

“He also taught me to appreciate single malt scotch, the writings of Raymond Chandler, and sumo wrestling, probably in that order.”

I heard that on a visit to Japan, instead of collecting a fee, travel costs etc he asked for a VIP seat to watch some sumo wrestling.