Explorers

The plane was the X-1, the year was 1947, the pilot was Chuck Yeager. But even before he made history by breaking the sound barrier, Yeager's exploits during World War II had made him a legend among his fellow flyers.

Shot down over occupied France, the wounded flyer successfully evaded capture and crossed the Pyrenees into neutral Spain, before returning to his squadron in England. Returning to the skies, he shot down five German planes in a single day, an extraordinary feat.

After the war, Yeager broke speed records again and again, testing new planes for the U.S Air Force. He served in both Korea and Vietnam, and helped train the first generation of U.S. astronauts. Along the way, he survived an incredible series of harrowing accidents. The bestselling book and hit movie The Right Stuff, and his own best-selling autobiography, Yeager, brought him international fame, but his courage and resourcefulness had already assured his place in the history of aviation.

General Yeager addressed the student delegates at the 1986 Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. at the opening symposium held at the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum.

Captain Robert L. Crippen is a former NASA astronaut who flew on four Space Shuttle missions, including three as commander. An aerospace engineering graduate from the University of Texas in 1960, he entered the Navy's Aviation Officer program. From 1962 to 1964, Crippen became an attack pilot aboard the aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Independence on multiple deployments. He became a NASA astronaut in September 1969 and was a member of the support crew for Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission. Then, on April 12-14, 1981, Captain Crippen earned international acclaim as the pilot of the first orbital test flight of the space shuttle program (STS-1), ushering in a new era of space travel and technology. He went on to serve as the commander of three additional shuttle flights (STS-7 in June 1983, STS-41C in April 1984; STS-41G in October 1984). Crippen retired from the U.S. Navy and subsequently served as the director of NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center from 1992 to 1995. His accomplishments have earned him many high honors, including the NASA Space Flight Medal, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Flight Achievement Award, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the Goddard Memorial Trophy, the Harmon Trophy, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor (the highest award for spaceflight achievement), and induction into the Aviation Hall of Fame. Captain Robert L. Crippen addressed the student delegates at the 1986 Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. at the opening symposium held at the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum, where he spoke about his experiences as the commander of the Space Shuttle, as well as the tragic loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger earlier that same year.

Donald E. Knuth is known around the world as the pre-eminent living scholar of computer science, the author of the comprehensive multi-volume work The Art of Computer Programming. Knuth has been called the "father" of the analysis of algorithms. In addition to fundamental contributions in several branches of theoretical computer science, Knuth is the creator of the TeX computer typesetting system, the related METAFONT font definition language and rendering system, and the Computer Modern family of typefaces. As a writer and scholar, Knuth created the WEB/CWEB computer programming systems designed to encourage and facilitate literate programming, and designed the MIX/MMIX instruction set architectures. In 1979, Donald Knuth received the National Medal of Science, the highest honor the United States bestows upon its greatest scientists. Donald Knuth's career has bridged the arts and sciences. In addition to his scientific accomplishments, he is a talented organist, composer and novelist. In this podcast, recorded at the Academy of Achievement's 1985 Summit in Denver, Colorado, he discusses the creative aspects of computer science. He urges the Academy's student delegates to broaden their horizons and hone their thinking through writing. Today, Donald Knuth is Professor Emeritus at Stanford University.

William Wilson Morgan (January 3, 1906 - June 21, 1994) was a Professor Emeritus at Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin, and whose work on the properties of stars and galaxies was fundamental in the creation of modern astronomy during the second half of the twentieth century. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1927, earned his doctorate there in 1931, and, the next year, was appointed an instructor at the famed Yerkes Observatory. Morgan spent his entire 68-year career at the observatory, and devoted his research to morphology, the classification of objects by their form and structure. He discovered "flash" variable stars (stars with rapidly changing luminosity). Professor Morgan's pioneering research in structural classification led to a new accuracy in our knowledge of the distances of stars. He also provided the first evidence of the spiral structure of the Milky Way Galaxy, in "one of the grandest feats of its kind in scientific history." He was the recipient of the Henry Draper Medal, presented by the National Academy of Sciences, and the Herschel Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. W.W. Morgan participated in the 1985 Achievement Summit in Denver, Colorado, and addressed the student delegates about his career as an astronomer.

Roger Revelle (March 7, 1909 - July 15, 1991) was one of the first scientists to predict and study global warming and the movement of Earth's tectonic plates, and was also instrumental in the formation of the University of California, San Diego. One of the world's most articulate spokesmen for science, he made his first mark in oceanography as a scientist, explorer and an administrator. The son of two schoolteachers in Seattle, he attended Pomona College and under the influence of charismatic professor Alfred Woodward, became interested in geology. In 1936, he earned his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley, and soon was on a path of leadership in international scientific affairs. One of his first major accomplishments was his proposal that the continuing addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere could lead to global warming. In a seminal paper in 1957, Dr. Revelle argued that the world's citizenry was performing "a great geophysical experiment" and called on the scientific community to monitor changes in the carbon dioxide content of the waters and the air. He later argued that the developing nations of the world were demanding special treatment on the limitations on the combustion of fossil fuels and that the carbon dioxide problem had become a "global economic experiment." In the 1950s, he was the intellectual architect for the creation of a University of California campus at La Jolla which involved the establishment of "a modern-day Athens where scholars would have a golden environment in which to think and create" with a heavy concentration on graduate education. Professor Revelle played a key role in the founding, in 1970, of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). In 1986, he underscored the committee's initiatives to "understand the interaction of the great global physical, chemical, and biological systems regulating Earth's favorable environment for life, and the influence of human activity on that environment." From 1964 to 1974, Dr. Revelle was the Director of the Center for Population Studies at Harvard University. In 1976, he returned to UC San Diego as a professor of science and public policy. In 1991, Dr. Revelle received the National Medal of Science from President George H.W. Bush as one of the twentieth century's most eminent scientists. Roger Revelle addressed the student delegates at the 1985 Achievement Summit in Denver, Colorado and spoke about his lifetime as a scientist, educator, and environmentalist.

Robert H. Hofstadter (1915 -1990) received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1961 for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his discoveries concerning the structure of nucleons. Born in New York City, he earned his undergraduate degree at City College, with support from the General Electric Company. His doctoral research at Princeton University was concerned with infrared spectra of simple organic molecules and, in particular, with the partial elucidation of the structure of the now well-known "hydrogen bond." He was still a graduate student at Princeton University when he discovered the sodium iodide scintillator, and determined how it detects gamma rays, a discovery that launched his career as a physicist. During World War II, he worked at the Norden Laboratory Corporation, developing automatic pilot systems. He returned to Princeton after the war, to continue exploring the detection and measurement of gamma rays. His discoveries have had far-reaching effects in medicine and biology, as well as physics. From 1950, he made his home at Stanford University, where he was Max H. Stein Professor of Physics and Director of the High Energy Physics Laboratory. His studies of high-energy electrons, neutrons, x-rays, cosmic radiation and the charge distribution within the nucleus of the atom led to his Nobel Prize in 1961. Robert Hofstadter attended the 1984 Achievement Summit Minneapolis, Minnesota as a recipient of the Academy's Golden Plate Award, along with his son, Pulitzer Prize author Douglas Hofstadter, the first time in the history of the Academy that a father and son were honored together. In this audio podcast, recorded on that occasion, the elder Professor Hofstadter recalls his discovery of the sodium iodide scintillator and the impact of his discovery on his subsequent career. He reminds the Academy's student delegates that the study of little things can lead to the discovery of big ones.

The American physicist Sheldon Glashow is famed for his discoveries concerning the elementary particles of matter and the interaction of the fundamental forces of nature. In particular he extended our understanding of the relationship of the "weak force" and electromagnetism, accurately predicted the existence of the "charm quark," and co-authored the first grand unified theory of the interaction of electromagnetism with the strong and weak forces. He received the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for his "contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles," including "the prediction of the weak neutral current." Sheldon Glashow was born to immigrant parents in New York City. His early interest in science was encouraged by his parents and older brothers. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1950, along with future fellow Nobelist Steven Weinberg. After earning his undergraduate degree at Cornell University and completing Ph.D. studies at Harvard, he taught at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1960s, and at Harvard for many years thereafter. He is now the Metcalf Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Boston University. In this audio podcast, recorded at the 1984 Achievement Summit in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Dr. Glashow notes that 16 of the 17 fundamental elementary particles of matter have already been discovered; he urges the Academy's student delegates to go out and discover the 17th.

The American biochemist Mildred Cohn (1913 - 2009) was a trailblazer for women in science, a tireless researcher whose investigations of enzymatic processes and chemical isotopes extended the boundaries of human knowledge. Born to immigrant parents in New York City, she graduated from Hunter College, and earned her doctorate at Columbia University, mentored by Dr. Harold C. Urey. She spent much of her career at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was Benjamin Rush Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, conducting much of her work at the Institute of Cancer Research. Among the first women elected to the National Academy of Sciences, she later became President of the American Society of Biological Chemists. Throughout her career, she found excitement in scientific work, joy in penetrating the mysteries of nature. When she was honored by the International Association for Women Biochemists in 1979, she affirmed her hope that more women would participate in this joy, and experience her own zest for science and the satisfaction derived from scientific discussions with dedicated colleagues. She was awarded the American Chemical Society's Garvan Medal, the Franklin Institute's Cresson Medal, and the 1983 National Medal of Science, the highest honor America bestows upon its scientific pioneers. In this audio podcast, recorded at the Academy of Achievement's 1984 Summit in Minneapolis, Minnesota, she shares her love of science with the Academy's student delegates, and recalls her own path to success, as well as the obstacles she had to overcome as a woman in a field dominated by men.

Professor of Computer Science at Indiana University, Douglas Hofstadter received the 1980 the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction for his book "Godel, Escher, Bach," which has been hailed as "a triumph of cleverness, a bravura performance, an incredible intellectual debut," and drew, from Scientific American magazine, the accolade: "Every few decades, an unknown author brings out a book of such depth, clarity, range, wit, beauty and originality that it is recognized at once as a major literary event. This is such a work." Hofstadter's research focuses on consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics. His book, Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language addresses the nature of language and the challenges of literary translation. Hofstadter himself has translated poems and novels from Russian, French and Italian. He has also reached thousands of readers through a monthly column in Scientific American. Douglas Hofstadter attended the Academy of Achievement's 1984 Summit in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as a recipient of the Academy's Golden Plate Award, along with his father, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Robert Hofstadter. It was the first time in the history of the Academy that a father and son were honored together. In this audio podcast, recorded on that occasion, Douglas Hofstadter recalls the fascination that math, physics, philosophy and computer science have always held for him. He also describes recent advances in the study of artificial intelligence, memory and the mind.

One of the world's leading experts in radar astronomy, Irwin I. Shapiro served as director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics from 1982 to 2004. At the Center, he oversaw the research of a dedicated team of astronomers, studying the evolution of matter from the birth of the universe to the formation of the planets. Born in New York City, Shapiro graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School, earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics at Cornell University, and a master's and Ph.D. in physics at Harvard. Shapiro joined the Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts in 1954 and became a professor of physics at MIT in 1967. In 1982, Shapiro returned to Harvard as professor of physics and director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center. He won the Charles A. Whitten Medal from the American Geophysical Union in 1991, and in 1997, he became the First Timken University Professor. Shapiro's own research has included the use of gravitational lenses to assess the age of the universe. In this audio podcast, recorded during the Academy of Achievement's 1984 Summit in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Professor Shapiro discusses the true substance of achievement. He tells the Academy's student delegates that true success requires the highest integrity, and illustrates his argument with an engaging story about the success of the Boston Celtics in the 1984 NBA tournament.