Everything about The Carnegie Institution totally explained
The
Carnegie Institution for Science (also called the
Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW)) is a organization in the United States established to support
scientific research.
Departments
Today the CIW directs its efforts in six main areas:
plant molecular biology at the Department of Plant Biology (
Stanford,
California),
developmental biology at the Department of Embryology (
Baltimore,
Maryland),
global ecology at the Department of Global Ecology (Stanford, CA),
earth science,
materials science, and
astrobiology at the Geophysical Laboratory (
Washington, DC);
earth and
planetary sciences as well as
astronomy at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (Washington, DC), and (at the
Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington (OCIW;
Pasadena, CA and
Las Campanas,
Chile)).
Mission
The Carnegie Institution was established by
Andrew Carnegie as a unique organization dedicated “in the broadest and most liberal manner” to scientific discovery. The guiding doctrine during the institution's history has been to devote its resources to “exceptional” individuals who can explore, in an atmosphere of complete freedom, complex scientific problems . Realizing that the institution’s success depended upon flexibility and freedom, Carnegie and his trustees established that tradition as the foundation of the institution which continues to support
Earth,
space, and
life sciences.
History
"It is proposed to found in the city of Washington, an institution which...shall in the broadest and most liberal manner encourage investigation, research, and discovery [and] show the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind..."
— Andrew Carnegie, January 28, 1902
The Carnegie Institution was founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1902. Its first president was
Daniel Coit Gilman, founder of the
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. One of the first grant recipients was
George Hale in 1904.
The name
Beginning in 1895, Andrew Carnegie donated his vast fortune to establish 23 organizations around the world that today bear his name and carry on work in fields as diverse as
art,
education,
international affairs,
world peace, and scientific research. (See Andrew Carnegie's 23 Organizations
(External Link
)). The organizations are independent entities and are related by name only.
In 2007, the institution adopted the name "Carnegie Institution for Science" to better distinguish it from the other organizations established by and named for Andrew Carnegie. The new name closely associates the words “Carnegie” and “
science” and thereby reveals the core identity. The institution remains officially and legally the Carnegie Institution of Washington, but now has a public identity that more clearly describes its work.
Observatories of the CIW
The Institution's grant to George Hale was used for the construction of a
telescope built around a large
mirror blank that he'd received as a gift from his father. The OCIW funded the completion of the 60-
inch Hale Telescope on
Mount Wilson in the
San Gabriel Mountains above Pasadena. Immediately work began on designing the even larger
Hooker Telescope (100-inch), completed in 1917. Two
solar telescopes were also constructed with Carnegie support and together they form the
Mount Wilson Observatory, still chiefly supported by the Carnegie Institution after 100 years. The OCIW went on to help Hale design and build the 200-inch telescope of the
Palomar Observatory (although construction was mostly paid for by a
Rockefeller grant).
The OCIW's chief observatory is now the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, where two identical 6.5
metre Magellan telescopes operate. OCIW is the lead institution in the consortium building the
Giant Magellan Telescope, which will be made up of seven
mirrors each 8.4 meters in
diameter for a total telescope diameter of 25.4 metres (83
feet). The telescope is expected to have over four times the
light-gathering ability of existing instruments.
Support for genetic research
In 1920 the
Eugenics Record Office in
Cold Spring Harbor, New York was merged with the Station for Experimental Evolution to become the CIW's
Department of Genetics. The CIW funded that laboratory until 1939. It closed in 1944 and its records were retained in a university library. The CIW continues its support for genetic research, and among its notable grantees in that field are
Nobel laureates Barbara McClintock,
Alfred Hershey and
Andrew Fire.
Support for archeological research
The Institution supported
archaeology in the
Yucatán Peninsula in the
1910s through the
1930s, including extensive excavations (under Carnegie associate and
Mayanist scholar
Sylvanus G. Morley) of
Chichen Itza,
Copán, and other sites of the
pre-Columbian Maya civilization.
Presidents of the CIW
Further Information
Get more info on 'Carnegie Institution'.
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