2016_PA_Newsletter_12_29_16_FINAL

ALUMNI NEWS
Matt Polk (‘71) Visits Hopkins’ CLASS Telescope in Chile
When asked to recall the moment
he first saw the CLASS Telescope
site high in Chile’s Atacama Desert,
Matt Polk, (B.S., ‘71), pauses, then
chuckles.
“It’s a bit like being drunk — but
not as fun,” he says, referencing the
oxygen-deprivation level at the site’s
17,000-foot summit. “It’s not an easy
place to work.”
Yet that’s the place Hopkins
scientists behind the Cosmology
Large-Angular Scale Surveyor
(CLASS) Telescope (see inside front
cover) are plying their trade. Polk,
co-founder of Polk Audio, Inc. and a
member of the advisory council for
the Henry A. Rowland Department
of Physics and Astronomy, was one
of the first donors to CLASS. The
initiative seeks to pinpoint how
the universe started and, in the process,
uncover a link between the seemingly
incompatible theories of quantum
mechanics and relativity — a nexus
considered the holy grail of cosmology.
Polk and his wife, Amy, visited CLASS’
home base in late 2015 to see the impact of
their generosity. At first, they stood awed at
the view — a rocky, desolate moonscape that
felt frigid even at the start of the Southern
Hemisphere’s summer. But more arresting
was the sight of Hopkins faculty, graduate
students, and postdoctoral fellows building
the telescope with their own hands.
“You usually picture top scientists sitting
in labs or standing in front of chalkboards,
not out in the trenches pulling electrical wire
through conduits and twisting wrenches,
especially in these harsh conditions,” Polk says.
The Polks also were able to see the
breakthrough their gift made possible.
Assistant Professor Tobias Marriage, a coprincipal
investigator on the project, and
Associate Research Scientist Thomas Essinger-
Hileman led a team that developed a novel
aluminum-silicon alloy for the telescope’s
feed horns — the devices that direct light to
the telescope’s detectors. The silicon material
Left to right: Amy Gould, Matt Polk, and Assistant Professor Tobias Marriage near the CLASS Telescope high site in
Chile’s Atacama Desert in late 2015.
previously used for this purpose is well
matched to the detector’s material properties,
but it is fragile. The new alloy also matches
well with the detector, but is more durable.
“The alternative way to make these
detectors — precise cuts into individual
layers of silicon — is expensive and timeconsuming,”
Marriage explains. “With our
new material, we can drill funnels straight
through and attach the material firmly to the
detectors, saving time and money.”
“This was a perfect example of American
academic entrepreneurship,” Polk says. “Toby’s
team saw an obstacle and came up with a
solution that combines good physics and
good engineering.”
Polk and several other donors — including
university trustee Heather Murren, A&S ‘88,
and her husband, Jim, and alumnus and
three-term New York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg — played important roles in
bringing CLASS this far. Additional gifts are
needed to complete the four-telescope
array’s construction and its survey of the sky,
and “extract the full science to answer these
big-picture questions about our universe,”
Marriage says.
After standing on a Chilean mountaintop
and seeing the potential of the CLASS
Telescope in person, Polk offers his full
endorsement.
“The CLASS Telescope presents a unique
opportunity to make a major, major impact
on some of the fundamental questions of
our time, at an institution with precisely the
capabilities to find the answers,” Polk says.
“This project might be the best application of
venture capital I can think of.”
To learn about how you can make a gift to
support the CLASS Telescope project, please
contact John Cook, director of principal and
major gifts for the Krieger School of Arts and
Sciences at cook@jhu.edu.
— Kristin Hanson
14 JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY 2016