Bob Hammond (BS ’71, MS ’72, PhD ’76) still remembers the lecture that sparked his fascination with quantum science. It was 1982, and the speaker was none other than Caltech theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman, who had recently begun to popularize the then-radical idea of quantum computing. “That’s stuck with me ever since,” Bob says.
More than four decades later, Bob and Tina Hammond have made a gift to Caltech that reflects both his long-standing interest in quantum mechanics and their deep ties to the Institute.