Contributed by Doug Ferguson
As with last month’s article, rather than focusing on the rapid descent of our current political and social culture, it’s been my intent to focus on past personal experiences with people that I have come to appreciate as representing what has been great about America during my lifetime in hopes that future generations will appreciate what we had then that enabled these individuals to do what they did.
This time I am featuring an outstanding professor whose class I was fortunate enough to be able to take in college, Dr. Jason Nassau. He then was Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at Case Institute of Technology (Now part of Case University) in Cleveland, Ohio where I was a freshman engineering student.
To understand the significance of this class to all who were fortunate enough to have taken it, we need to go back a few years to early September 1955 when I, and the rest of the freshman class of Case were on campus for Freshman Orientation Week. The week was filled with the required move into dorms, registrations, campus orientation, how to pay for our food at the cafeteria, buying textbooks, lectures on curriculums, Case history and traditions and many other things we needed to know before classes started the following Monday. These were all during the day except for one event. On Thursday evening we were all loaded into buses and taken out to the old Warner and Swasey Observatory on Taylor road in East Cleveland to hear a lecture by Dr. Nassau.
As we all filed in and noisily sat in the high student gallery in the beautiful old Observatory building, we gazed down upon old 9.5-inch refractor telescope which had been donated to the college in1919 and gazed up at the impressive 24-inch Burrell Schmidt telescope built in 1939 and donated to Case, now residing on Kitt Peak in Arizona. Presently a small, balding white haired older man in a rumpled suit slowly walked out and, in a high pitched raspy voice announced that he was Dr. Jason Nassau, head of Case's Astronomy department and that he was going to tell us about the observatory, Case's astronomy program and the fascinating story of our Universe.
Given his unimpressive appearance, his age and his high raspy voice, I don't believe any of we freshman thought this was going to be a fun evening. Boy, were we wrong! He spoke for about an hour and during that period you could hear a pin drop during his pauses. I don't remember all he said, but he talked about the universe beyond us and how man's wonder of it drove him to quest for more and more knowledge of what it was, how it came to be and what place the earth had in it.
He gave us examples to imagine the scale of the universe and how it related to the earth. He mentioned the famous astronomers that he knew personally, such as Fred Hoyle and George Gamow and their debate on the origins of the Universe. In spite of his high, older and somewhat frail voice he held over one hundred freshman spell bound for over an hour. Afterwards, we all got to have a glimpse at a celestial object (I don't remember what it was) through the old 9.5-inch refractor which was in use only as a teaching instrument.
Dr. Nassau was the first chair of the department of astronomy and later became Professor Emeritus. He was a pioneer in the study of galactic structure and he personally really did know both Fred Hoyle, the originator of the “steady state” hydrogen theory of the universe popular at the time, and George Gamow, the originator of the “Big Bang theory”. He was 82 years old when we first saw him as freshman and 86 years old when I was a senior and took his course. By then he only taught one undergraduate course a year. Thus it is a credit to his ability to inspire interest in astronomy in a group of young students that it required getting up at 3:00am. four years later to stand in line to make sure you got into his class!
He left a lasting influence on me about the subject of knowledge, along with an interest in the subject of astronomical science and science in general that I have had ever since.
This was because his class was more than astronomy. It really was a course in the philosophy of science and knowledge in general. His belief was that man will always quest for knowledge as long as man exists and that we will never know it all. He also believed that as we gained more knowledge we will find much more we don't know and will continue our quest to find it.
This humble message from a great scientist is a stark contrast to the cry of “settled science” we hear so much about today.
Truly, Dr. Jason Nassau was a great American college teacher and I consider myself fortunate to have experienced his class and lived in America at a time when such a person could flourish, be effective and be appreciated.
Doug Ferguson is a retired engineer living in Palmer, AK who has had a life-long interest in nature, science, history and human behavior