NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science

The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (popularly known as SEAS) is a school of Columbia University which awards degrees in engineering, applied physics and applied mathematics. Columbia, originally chartered as King's College in 1754, is the fifth oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science was founded as the School of Mines in 1863 and then the School of Mines, Engineering and Chemistry before becoming the School of Engineering and Applied Science. It was the country's first such institution. On October 1, 1997, the school was renamed in honor of Chinese businessman Z. Y. Fu, who had donated $26 million. Today, the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science is an exclusive and intimate engineering school. A student to faculty ratio of 10 to 1 allows SEAS to offer numerous research opportunities. The small engineering school also draws upon Columbia University's endowment, in excess of $5.94 billion dollars, and maintains close links with all of the university's graduate schools, as well as Columbia College. This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ... Year 1863 (MDCCCLXIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Private schools, or independent schools, are schools not administered by local, state, or national government, which retain the right to select their student body and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students tuition rather than with public (state) funds. ... Zvi Galil is the Dean of the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University as well as a professor there of engineering and computer science. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... NY redirects here. ... Columbia University is a private research university in the United States. ... Engineering is the design, analysis, and/or construction of works for practical purposes. ... Cutout of the ITER project Applied physics is physics that is intended for a particular technological or practical use, as for example in engineering, as opposed to basic research. ... Applied mathematics is a branch of mathematics that concerns itself with the mathematical techniques typically used in the application of mathematical knowledge to other domains. ... 1754 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Year 1863 (MDCCCLXIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 274th day of the year (275th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Columbia College is the main undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the universitys main campus of Morningside Heights in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York. ...

Today the school is known for its ongoing research and numerous patents. For example, it is the only academic institution to hold a share of the patents for MPEG-2. MPEG-2 is a standard for the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information [1]. It is widely used around the world to specify the format of the digital television signals that are broadcast by terrestrial (over-the-air), cable, and direct broadcast satellite TV systems. ...

History

Original charter of 1754 and the establishing of a school of engineering

Included in the original charter for Columbia University was the direction to teach "the arts of Number and Measuring, of Surveying and Navigation [...] the knowledge of [...] various kinds of Meteors, Stones, Mines and Minerals, Plants and Animals, and everything useful for the Comfort, the Convenience and Elegance of Life." Engineering has always been a part of Columbia, even before the establishment of any separate school of engineering. From this charter, those established within the Columbia University gave birth to what is now known as the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science.

An early and influential graduate from the school was John Stevens, Class of 1768. Instrumental in the establishment of U.S. patent law, Stevens procured many patents in early steamboat technology, operated the first steam ferry between New York and New Jersey, received the first railroad charter in the U.S., built a pioneer locomotive, and amassed a fortune, which allowed his sons to found the Stevens Institute of Technology. (Excerpt from SEAS website.) This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

When Columbia University first resided on Wall Street, engineering did not have a school under the Columbia umbrella. After Columbia outgrew its space on Wall Street, it relocated to what is now Midtown Manhattan in 1857. The Columbia University School of Mines was originally approved in 1863 in the Columbia College School of Mines, as a plan to establish a School of Mines and Metallurgy with a three-year program open to professionally-motivated students with or without prior undergraduate training. It was officially founded in 1864 and specialized in mining and mineralogical engineering. An example of work from a student at the School of Mines was William Barclay Parsons, Class of 1882. He was an engineer on the Chinese railway and the Cape Cod and Panama Canals. Most importantly he worked for New York, as a chief engineer of the city's first subway. Opened in 1904, the subway’s electric cars took passengers from City Hall to Brooklyn, the Bronx, and the newly renamed and relocated Columbia University in Morningside Heights, its present location on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The first regularly-operated subway in New York City was built by the city and leased to the Interborough Rapid Transit Company for operation under Contracts 1 and 2. ...

Renaming to the School of Mines, Engineering and Chemistry

In 1896, the school was renamed to the "School of Mines, Engineering and Chemistry". During this time, the University was offering more than the previous name had implied, thus the change of name.

The faculty during this time included Michael Idvorsky Pupin, after whom Pupin Hall is named. Pupin himself was a graduate of the Class of 1883 and the inventor of the "Pupin coil," a device that extended the range of long-distance telephones. Students of his included Irving Langmuir, Nobel laureate in Chemistry (1932), inventor of the gas-filled tungsten lamp and a contributor to the development of the radio vacuum tube. Another student to work with Pupin was Edwin Howard Armstrong, inventor of FM radio. After graduating in 1913 Armstrong was stationed in France during the First World War. There he developed the superheterodyne circuit to detect the frequency of enemy aircraft ignition systems. Mihajlo Pupin. ... Pupin Hall Pupin Hall is the home of Columbia Universitys Physics Department. ... In electronics, a loading coil is a coil (inductor) that does not provide coupling to any other circuit, but is inserted in a circuit to increase its inductance. ... Irving Langmuir at home (c. ... Structure of a vacuum tube diode Structure of a vacuum tube triode In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube, or (outside North America) thermionic valve or just valve, is a device used to amplify, switch or modify a signal by controlling the movement of electrons in an evacuated space. ... Edwin Howard Armstrong (December 18, 1890 â€“ January 31, 1954) was an American electrical engineer and inventor. ... FM radio is a broadcast technology invented by Edwin Howard Armstrong that uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. ... Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ...

The Fu Foundation and the 20th century

The university continued to evolve and expand as the United States became a major political power during the 20th century. In 1926, the newly renamed School of Engineering prepared students for the nuclear age.

Graduating with a master's degree, Hyman George Rickover, working with the Navy's Bureau of Ships, directed the development of the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, which was launched in 1954. The first nuclear-powered submarine spawned an era that increased the Navy's ability to defend the homeland. Hyman George Rickover, (January 27, 1900 - July 8, 1986) was a US Navy Admiral known as the Father of the Nuclear Navy. ... The United States Navys Bureau of Ships (BuShips) was established by Congress on June 20, 1940, by a law which consolidated the functions of the Bureau of Construction and Repair and the Bureau of Engineering. ... USS Nautilus (SSN-571) was the worlds first operational nuclear-powered submarine and the first vessel to complete a submerged transit across the North Pole. ...

After a substantial grant of $26 million from Chinese businessman Z. Y. Fu, the engineering school was renamed again in 1997. The new name, as it is known today is the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. SEAS continues to be a world-class teaching and research institution, now with a large endownment of $350 million, and sits under the Columbia umbrella endowment of $5.2 billion. It is the only university to hold a share in the MPEG-2 patent. The school continues research into nuclear science with the Robert A. Gross Plasma Physics Lab. The school is also home to Columbia's High-Beta Tokamak (HBT-EP), and conducts further research into plasma physics with the Collisionless Terrella Experiment (CTX), and the Columbia Non-Neutral Torus (CNT) experiment. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2048x1536, 1306 KB) This is my picture. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2048x1536, 1306 KB) This is my picture. ... MPEG-2 is a standard for the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information [1]. It is widely used around the world to specify the format of the digital television signals that are broadcast by terrestrial (over-the-air), cable, and direct broadcast satellite TV systems. ... The nucleus (atomic nucleus) is the center of an atom. ...

New groundbreaking research that holds great promise is a laser-based method to create a single crystal film for a variety of devices, from solar cells to thin-film transistors for flat panel displays and for computers. Columbia also holds a patent in that technology. Also, within a short time, it may be possible to put an entire computer on a sheet of glass or plastic, thanks to the innovations taking place in Engineering School labs.

Admissions

Columbia University coat of arms This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ... Columbia University coat of arms This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ...

Columbia SEAS regular decision

According to the statistics from the Class of 2009, 50% of those admitted to Columbia SEAS enrolled. The size of that class of incoming freshmen was about 320, allowing for a student:faculty ratio of 10:1 or less: Columbia Admissions Statistics.

The middle 50% of the Class of 2010 SEAS freshmen's SAT scores is 1440 – 1550 out of 1600 (old SAT) This is comparable to MIT's interquartile range, consisting of (1430-1570). Additionally, of schools that provided Columbia with a class rank, approximately 93% of accepted students were in the top 10% of their graduating class; 99% were in the top 20% of their class. 58% of admitted students attended high schools that do not rank.

SEAS students within the Columbia University community are given credit for raising the SAT statistics for the overall undergraduate university, as SEAS students tend to do particularly well on standardized tests. However, non-statistically speaking, Columbia University admits those who have well-rounded academic and social lives, a penchant for tough challenges, and the ability to handle Columbia's rigors. As a result, highly qualified students are continually approaching SEAS for admission. Trends suggest that SEAS is getting much harder to get into: according to the Office of Planning and Institutional Research, the admission rate is going down. SEAS prospective students are accepted through the Office of Undergraduate Affairs alongside many other qualified prospective Columbians.

Typical prospective students apply to Columbia SEAS because the school offers exceptional training for leadership in engineering. Those accepting enrollment at Columbia SEAS typically apply their knowledge of engineering from undergraduate school and go on to professional graduate school, like business, law, or medical school, so as to become what Columbia terms "engineering leaders." Engineering leaders are those who pioneer or define engineering: patent lawyers, doctors with specialties in biophysics, and financial engineers. SEAS also encourages many of its students to pursue graduate Master's and Ph.D. engineering programs. SEAS students live at the forefront of scientific inquiry, but ultimately understand and remember the human implications of their work.

Columbia University overall

Early decision

In recent news, on November 18th, 2006, Dean Zvi Galil sent current SEAS students an email stating that SEAS early decision applicants rose 51% for class of 2011 applicants.

Academics

SEAS focuses on leadership development. Many classes, perhaps exceedingly, revolve around societal awareness and responsibility in lieu of demanding expectations. Undergraduates are required to participate in professional level opportunities. Photo of Columbia University at New York City (taken June 15, 2003 by djmutex), herewith licensed under GFDL. File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Photo of Columbia University at New York City (taken June 15, 2003 by djmutex), herewith licensed under GFDL. File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...

Similar to the Columbia College requirements, there is a rigorous set of required "core classes". The core classes typically consist of a semester or more of classes in each of these disciplines: Columbia College is the main undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the universitys main campus of Morningside Heights in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York. ...

Engineers are also required to take a selection of the classes from Columbia College's Core Curriculum. These may include classes in literature, philosophy, major cultures, art history or music history. The Core Curriculum was originally developed as the main curriculum used by Columbia Universitys Columbia College. ...

In addition to having technical required classes, engineers are required to take 29 credits of "non-technical" classes. There is usually a high degree of freedom in choosing one's non-technical classes, but the number of required credits is often much more than other comparable engineering schools require.

Inside the engineering school, all classes (including introductory first-year classes) are taught by professors. While graduate students may teach recitation sections, all credited classes are taught by faculty. On average, the student to professor ratio in SEAS is 10:1.

Many students participate in collegiate design competitions. For example, 30% of the mechanical engineering students are in either Solar Splash (Solar Boating) or the Formula-One SAE competition. Car 96 from Universidad Simon Bolivar during the Technical Inspection 2005 Formula SAE is a student design competition sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers. ...

Facilities

Columbia's Plasma Physics Laboratory is part of the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), in which the HBT and Columbia Non-Neutral Torus are housed. A plasma lamp, illustrating some of the more complex phenomena of a plasma, including filamentation. ... In geometry, a torus (pl. ...

The school also has two wind tunnels, a machine shop, a nanotechnology laboratory, a General Electric TRIGA III nuclear fission reactor, a large scale centrifuge for geotechnical testing, and an axial tester commonly used for testing New York City bridge cables. Each department has numerous laboratories on the Morningside Heights campus; however, other departments have holdings throughout the world. For example, the Applied Physics department has reactors at Nevis Labs in Irvington, NY and conducts work with CERN in Geneva. NASA wind tunnel with the model of a plane A wind tunnel is a research tool developed to assist with studying the effects of air moving over or around solid objects. ... A lathe is a common tool used in machining. ... Buckminsterfullerene C60, also known as the buckyball, is the simplest of the carbon structures known as fullerenes. ... GE redirects here. ... TRIGA is a class of small nuclear reactor designed and manufactured by General Atomics of the USA. TRIGA is an acronym of Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics. This type of reactor can be installed without a containment building, and is designed for use by scientific institutions and universities for purposes... Nuclear power station at Leibstadt, Switzerland. ... A laboratory tabletop centrifuge A centrifuge is a piece of equipment, generally driven by a motor, that puts an object in rotation around a fixed axis, applying force perpendicular to the axis. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... Morningside Heights is a neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City and is bound by the Upper West Side, Morningside Park, Harlem, and Riverside Park (some now consider it part of the Upper West Side). ... CERN logo The Organisation europÃ©enne pour la recherche nuclÃ©aire (English: European Organization for Nuclear Research), commonly known as CERN, pronounced (or in French), is the worlds largest particle physics laboratory, situated just northwest of Geneva on the border between France and Switzerland. ... Geneva (pronunciation //; French: GenÃ¨ve //, German: //, Italian: Ginevra //, Romansh: Genevra) is the second most populous city in Switzerland (after ZÃ¼rich), and is the most populous city of Romandy (the French-speaking part of Switzerland). ...

Mission and new objectives

SEAS students are educated to make an impact in the world with what they make, learn, teach, define, and explore.

Directions for the new century

As an integral part to Columbia's beliefs for the future engineer, the liberal arts curriculum is celebrated and remains a central object of a SEAS student's education. The liberal arts curriculum provides the surest chart with which an engineer can navigate the future; all undergraduates must complete a modified rigorous version of Columbia College’s celebrated Core Curriculum. It is these courses in Western Civilization and other major cultures that best prepare a student for advanced course work; a wide range of eventual professions; and a continuing, life-long pursuit of knowledge, understanding, and social perspective. It is also these Core courses that most closely tie today’s student to the alumni of centuries past. Through a shared exposure to the nontechnical arts, all Columbia engineering students—past, present, and future—gain the humanistic tools needed to build lives not solely as technical innovators, but as social and political ones as well. Columbia College is the main undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the universitys main campus of Morningside Heights in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York. ... The Core Curriculum was originally developed as the main curriculum used by Columbia Universitys Columbia College. ...

Practicing practical engineering, expanding the scope of engineering

At Columbia, innovative approaches, including computer-assisted design, the use of "smart" materials, and collaborations with other Columbia departments and schools are opening frontiers in an expanding host of fields: from financial engineering to corrosion control, cryogenic manufacturing to biomedical engineering.

The engineering school reworked its curriculum scheme years ago, which mandates freshmen to take the novel Gateway Lab course. The goal is to immerse students in engineering design, practice, and philosophy at the earliest possible point in an engineer's education. This is a cutting edge implementation of this new educational method.

Notable alumni

Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 â€“ November 17, 1929) was an American statistician who developed a mechanical tabulator based on punched cards to rapidly tabulate statistics from millions of pieces of data. ... International Business Machines Corporation (known as IBM or Big Blue; NYSE: IBM) is a multinational computer technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. The company is one of the few information technology companies with a continuous history dating back to the 19th century. ... William Barclay Parsons (April 15, 1859 - May 9, 1932) was a famous American civil engineer. ... Irving Langmuir at home (c. ... This is a list of Nobel Prize laureates in Chemistry from 1901 to 2006. ... Edwin Howard Armstrong (December 18, 1890 â€“ January 31, 1954) was an American electrical engineer and inventor. ... The abbreviations FM, Fm, and fm may refer to: Electrical engineering Frequency modulation (FM) and its most common applications: FM broadcasting, used primarily to broadcast music and speech at VHF frequencies FM synthesis, a sound-generation technique popularized by early digital synthesizers Science Femtometre (fm), an SI measure of length... Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 â€“ May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and newspaper columnist. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Hyman George Rickover, (January 27, 1900 - July 8, 1986) was a US Navy Admiral known as the Father of the Nuclear Navy. ... The United States Navy (USN) is the branch of the United States armed forces responsible for naval operations. ... Joseph (Joe) F. Engelberger (New York City, July 26, 1925) is an engineer and entrepreneur who is often credited with being the Father of Robotics. Along with George Devol, Engelberger developed the first industrial robot in the United States, the Unimate, in the 1950s. ... Robert C. Merton (born July 31, 1944), a leading scholar in the field of finance, was one of three men who, in the early 1970s, developed the mathematics of the stock options markets. ... The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel[1] (Swedish: Sveriges Riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), commonly called the Nobel Prize in Economics, or more acurately the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, is a prize awarded each year for outstanding intellectual... The Black-Scholes model, often simply called Black-Scholes, is a model of the varying price over time of financial instruments, and in particular stocks. ... Petes Brewing Company was founded by homebrewer Pete Slosberg in 1986. ... Astronaut Michael J. Massimino Michael J. Massimino (Ph. ... This is a mission of the United States Space Shuttle Crew Scott D. Altman (3), Commander Duane G. Carey (1), Pilot John M. Grunsfeld (4), Payload Commander Nancy J. Currie (4), Mission Specialist James H. Newman (4) , Mission Specialist Richard M. Linnehan (3), Mission Specialist Michael J. Massimino (1), Mission... Bold text A Ted Rall cartoon depicting John Kerry and George W. Bush. ... This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ...

Programs

The Materials Science Tetrahedron, which often also includes Characterization at the center Materials science is an interdisciplinary field involving the properties of matter and its applications to various areas of science and engineering. ... Materials engineering is a discipline related to materials science which focusses on materials design, processing techniques (casting, rolling, welding, ion implantation, crystal growth, thin film deposition, sintering, glassblowing, etc. ... The first few hydrogen atom electron orbitals shown as cross-sections with color-coded probability density Physics (Greek: (phÃºsis), nature and (phusikÃ©), knowledge of nature) is the branch of science concerned with the discovery and characterization of universal laws which govern matter, energy, space, and time. ... Applied mathematics is a branch of mathematics that concerns itself with the mathematical techniques typically used in the application of mathematical knowledge to other domains. ... Henry Krumb was a American copper miner. ... Henry Krumb was a American copper miner. ... Computer engineering (also called electronic and computer engineering) is a discipline that combines elements of both electrical engineering and computer science. ... In the history of education, the seven liberal arts comprise two groups of studies, the trivium and the quadrivium. ...

Departments

The Falkirk Wheel in Scotland. ... Engineering mechanics is a branch of the physical sciences which looks to understand the actions and reactions of bodies at rest or in motion. ... The first few hydrogen atom electron orbitals shown as cross-sections with color-coded probability density Physics (Greek: (phÃºsis), nature and (phusikÃ©), knowledge of nature) is the branch of science concerned with the discovery and characterization of universal laws which govern matter, energy, space, and time. ... Applied mathematics is a branch of mathematics that concerns itself with the mathematical techniques typically used in the application of mathematical knowledge to other domains. ... The AbioCor artificial heart, an example of a biomedical engineering application of mechanical engineering with biocompatible materials for Cardiothoracic Surgery using an artificial organ. ... Chemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with the application of physical science (e. ... Computer science, or computing science, is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. ... Bostons Big Dig presented geotechnical challenges in an urban environment. ... Environmental engineering[1][2] is the application of science and engineering principles to improve the environment (air, water, and/or land resources), to provide healthy water, air, and land for human habitation and for other organisms, and to remediate polluted sites. ... Electrical Engineers design power systemsâ€¦ â€¦ and complex electronic circuits. ... This article needs additional references or sources to facilitate its verification. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Operations management. ... Mechanical engineering is an engineering discipline that involves the application of principles of physics for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. ...

Specialized centers

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