All of Caltech, and the cosmology community worldwide, is mourning the death of Andrew Lange. He was one of the world’s leading scientists, co-leader of the Boomerang experiment that provided the first precise measurement of the first acoustic peak in the cosmic microwave background. He took his own life Thursday night.
It’s hard to convey how unexpected and tragic this news is. Very few people combined Andrew’s brilliance as a scientist with his warmth as a person. He always had a sparkle in his eye, was enthusiastically in love with science and ideas, and was constantly doing his best to make Caltech the best possible place, not just for himself but for everyone else around him. He was one of the good guys. The last I spoke with him, Andrew was energetically raising funds for a new submillimeter telescope, organizing conferences, and helping plan for a new theoretical physics center. We are all walking around in shock, wondering how this could happen and whether we could have done anything to prevent it. Caltech has had several suicides this year — hard to make sense of any of them.
The message from Caltech President Jean-Lou Chameau is below the fold. For any local readers, there’s contact info if you would like to talk to counselors for any reason.
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January 22, 2010
TO: The Caltech Community
FROM: Jean-Lou Chameau
It is with great sadness and regret that I must report to you the death of Professor Andrew Lange, a valued member of the Caltech faculty. Andrew was found this morning off campus, and it appears that he took his own life. Among the most difficult things that people have to deal with in life are tragedies of this sort, especially when they affect people that we know and care for; and Andrew was such a well-known, well-respected, and well-liked member of our community that many of us will be deeply affected.
Andrew came to Caltech in 1993 and was most recently the chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy. He was a truly great physicist and astronomer who had made seminal discoveries in observational cosmology.
Andrew was a valued colleague and a close friend to many of us. His death is a source of great sadness to us all and our deepest sympathy goes out to his family, friends, and colleagues, all of whom mourn his loss.
We know this tragic news will come as a shock to everyone — faculty, staff, and students alike, even those of you who knew that Andrew had been struggling with personal issues. Many of us feel the need in times like these to reach out and seek help in dealing with the shock, and I urge anyone who wants help to seek it from family members, friends, faculty, and/or professional counselors. This is not only a reasonable thing to do, it is an important thing to do. I want to emphasize in particular that counselors are always available, 24-hours a day. Students should call the Counseling Center at 626-395-8331, while faculty, staff, and postdocs, should call the Staff and Faculty Consultation Center at 626-395-8360. In addition, the Counseling Center will be open on Saturday and Sunday from 10-3pm.
Professor Andrew Lange was my friend in high school and college. (He was known as “Andy” then!) We had lost touch over the years, but I occasionally read about him in the newspaper and I thought it was wonderful that his achievements were broadening our knowledge about the origins and character of the universe. Even back in high school he had a unique way of looking at things, and he was tremendously well-liked and respected. The world always seemed a better and brighter place for his presence, and I am so very sorry that he is no longer with us. My heart goes out to his family and friends and I pray that they will find peace and be comforted.
I did not know Prof. Lange personally but friends who did are deeply saddened by his loss.
At least three of the four recent suicides, including his, are known to have use the same method. It’s also been known for months that the two undergrads specifically used the exact same method.
The successive suicides in such a small and close knit community, and the knowledge of a easy and reliable method, may be influencing people to act on their suicidal thoughts. This is a time for all members of the community to look out for each other.
I can’t pretend to understand Dr. Andrew Lange’s work. In fact, I couldn’t even figure out what he and most of the rest of the kids were doing when we were in physics class together during our senior year of high school.
I began my formal education one morning in September of 1962 at Samuel Staples School in Easton, Connecticut. Andy Lange started his academic career a few hours later, since kids on the north side of town did their half-day of kindergarten in the afternoon.
The two of us attended many of the same classes through Grade 8, and quite a few more after we moved up to the regional high school in neighboring Redding. In addition to sharing a first name, each of us was the oldest of three children. We both played Little League baseball. We attended the same birthday parties. We were about the same size and build, and both of us had a one-syllable last name that ended with a “G’ sound. Sometimes during the first week of a new school year teachers would joke about having two Andys in the class and wonder aloud how they’d be able to tell us apart. But it never took them long to figure out which of us was which.
Andy Lange’s test scores were always located on the lower left-hand side of the bell curve. Mine were generally found on the extreme right. A significant percentage of the acceptance I got in high school was derived from the knowledge other kids had that as long as I was in the class, none of them had to worry about getting the lowest grade. On more than one occasion Andy Lange was class president. I was the perennial class clown.
Andy Lange achieved international renown as a cosmologist, but as a kid in Easton he was always something even more significant: a truly nice person. As a teenager he was universally liked and admired by everyone at Joel Barlow High School: faculty, honor students, jocks, musicians, cigarette smokering rebels, and everyday Joes and Janes. His always-inclusive manner featured a unique and impish sense of humor. He had no discernable mean streak, which then as now was unusual for an adolescent male. He never flaunted his considerable cerebral talents, and treated everyone with respect. Whatever the opposite of an elitist is was what Andy Lange was.
Apparently he hadn’t changed in that regard. Many of the postings here reflect that. It’s striking that he was loved at least as much for who he was than admired for being what he was. Whoever said, “It’s nice to be important, but it’s important to be nice,” must have been thinking about Andy.
When I first heard of my old friend’s untimely passing I briefly thought about how impressive it was that someone from our small hometown could rate a detailed obituary in the New York Times. But I’d much prefer to have read an eloquent summary of Doctor Lange’s remarkable 80 or 90 year life three or four decades from now, rather than catching up on his noteworthy but all too short one now.
Terrible, shocking, sad news. Like Eileen and Andy (#76 and 78) I knew Andy from grade school (I remember the 2 Andys!). After high school (where I was one of the “cigarette smokering rebels”) we never met again until Andy found me on the web and emailed me in July of last year. I was very impressed by his accomplishments and he graciously made much of my small ones. We exchanged a couple of emails, promising to look for an opportunity to meet in Ithaca where another grade school friend also lives. I wish we had not put it off.
Many of you know him as a warm, generous adult. To me he will always be Prince Charming to my Cinderella, as in the 4th grade school play, and my first official boyfriend, who rode his bicycle up the spectacular hills to my family’s home in Easton, CT.
My heart goes out to his family, friends, and colleagues, and to all who feel this loss.
As a member of the Barlow Class of 1973, I remember Andy as that young guy who racked up all the awards and honors in high school. As Andy Young and Patti have already mentioned, I also remember him as a truly nice guy. I’ve just heard from Bob Cox, who was the advisor for the Barlow yearbook, for which Andy was the photography editor. Bob remembers him as “one of the brightest, most cheerful and helpful kids I ever worked with.” Clearly he was on his way to great things even at that early age. His passing is a great loss to the world of science, as well as to those of us who remember him from earlier days.
IMHO, perhaps places like CalTech is not such a great idea. With one of the largest concentration of left brain types in the country, if not the world, it’s a great place for advancing research, but it is also rather bubble-like and ultimately unhealthy.
To be happy, human beings need to use both sides of their brains. If someone is extremely good at using their left side, chances are s/he’s not so good at using their right. S/He might need help developing some kind of balance, for instance by hanging out with right brainers, learning their language, way of looking and doing etc… If, instead, s/he’s in a place like CalTech, the chances of running into right brainers is low. No one, not even the person, will notice or understand any distress s/he might feel.
My two cents worth…
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I was so saddened to hear of Andy’s untimely death though it has been thirty five years since I last saw him.
I knew him for four years while he was a student and I was a young English teacher at his high school in Connecticut. I was a first year yearbook adviser and Andy as a Freshman started hanging around the office with his camera in tow. He was a such a reliable, talented, good humored, responsible young man I knew I needed him there to help make our work a success. I was impressed with the respect his classmates had for him and the collegial way he worked with the staff. Those years working with him were a pleasure.
I remember a long afternoon driving him around to sites in Redding so he could take pictures of historical sites for a section in the yearbook we were hoping would celebrate the bicentenial of the town.
And I remember particularly how he worked with one of the younger would be photographers on our staff who couldn’t manage to turn in a roll of film that wasn’t consistently out of focus! We puzzled over what to do about it. My impatient thought was not to issue the fellow any more film until he learned how to focus his camera.
It was Andy who figured out that the younger photographer needed to have his eyes examined. Andy convinced him to have an exam and within two weeks his young mentee showed up wearing glasses and happily handed in the first of many rolls of film we could use!
Looking at the tributes that have been written about Andy in the days since his unsettling death I am struck by the number of people who were helped by him: helped by his guidance, his teaching, his mentoring influence, his kindness and sensitivity.
Remarkably, young Andy showed me a patient path to working with a student and gave a classmate a clearer view of his surroundings. Isn’t that what he did for all of us in giving us a clearer vision of the expanding universe? Such lifelong consistency. Such a loss. My heart goes out to his family and friends.
I, like Andy Young did not know what Andy Lange did after High School, but I too remember him as being one, if not the nicest kid in high school. While he was a smart kid, he was friends with everyone. Thanks to Mr. Cox for mentioning Andy with his camera, I remember him walking around school taking all the “candid” shots for the yearbook of the other students. My condolences to his family and all those who knew and worked with him over the years.
My deepest sympathies at the loss of Prof. Andrew Lange. My heart aches for his loved ones and for the Caltech students.
I can’t go into the many objections I have to many of the comments above, including the comment about scientists not being emotionally intelligent, among others. The fact is that scientists and poets are two of a handful of professions with the highest rates of suicide. Science has not explained why.
I agree with the woman who mentioned the book, “Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide” by Kay Redfield Jamison as a very important book for all of us to read. Another is Andrew Solomon’s “The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression.” Although suicide is a leading killer world-wide and is the second-leading cause of death in college-aged students, many of us are completely ignorant of the research and facts surrounding mental illlness. If heart disease were the second-leading cause of death on college campuses, I believe college policy and health services would look very different and our sympathy and outreach to those beset by these illnesses would be very different.
Regarding suicide contagion, yes, this is a well-researched and very real phenomenon. I should know: I am the mother of Brian Go. My brilliant and beloved son was both academically and emotionally intelligent, beloved by many, but he suffered and died while at Caltech from a treatable mental illness. He had gone to counseling off and on for all three years he attended. He attempted suicide on May 3, reported his own suicide attempt to a dean and a counselor the following day, was evaluated, and let back into the community, where he continued to ideate. We were never called. Many, many people at Caltech knew my son had attempted suicide. Not one person thought to call us. If you are interested, you can read the whole story by googling my son’s name. You will reach “My Death Space.” There you may read my response to the callous and presumptuous article posted there by someone in the Caltech counseling center maligning my son by saying he didn’t reach out. He did. President Chameau encourages students to seek help at the counseling center, but knowing what I know, please parents, get professional mental health care for your adult children with a psychiatrist outside of Caltech!
I agree with the person who posted that suicide attempts must be taken seriously. Call 911 if you have to. Do not promise confidentiality. As mental health staff at Stanford advise their resident advisors, “It is better to have someone angry and alive than dead and dead.”
So, our brilliant, loving, and kind son now lies under two feet of snow in a nearby cemetery as I write, but at least he is finally home with us in Maryland. If I had EVER known how very strict the privacy laws are in California, I would never, ever have let him step foot in that state, let alone on the Caltech campus. He loved Caltech and we loved Caltech, but I have never had an illusion shattered so horrendously in my life. I was shaky before about placing trust in institutions. I am now cynical beyond measure at what institutions are capable of. I believe that there is a very scary tendency for individuals to surrender their morals to the interests of the institution, and it is my belief that this is what happened in the case of our son’s death. Parents, I urge you to seek an investigation, for the safety of your children, into all of these deaths. I am not publicly blaming anyone, but we need to look at the privacy laws and have the standards for suicide attempt notification clarified and perhaps standardized, so our children’s lives are not left in the hands of deans unrehearsed in the horrors of mental illness, let alone 20-year-old undergrads, who in my son’s case, were left to become sick themselves trying to keep my son from killing himself.
I weep for Andrew Lange, Brian Go, Jackson Wang, and Mr. Tran, and for their pain, and I continue to educate myself on depression and its prevention and will work on advocacy to improve benighted mental health policies on college campuses.
My apologies: Long Phan is the name of the graduate student who died this summer. All of the deceased, along with their family, friends, and colleagues, are in my daily prayers.
I met Andy Lange about 30 years ago when I was a student at Brown University and he was taking a year off from Princeton, living in Providence, RI. Like many others, I was quickly charmed by his intelligence, good looks, humor, and kindness. I remember spending hours with him in Brown’s little observatory on the roof of the physics building, finding ( through breaks in the Rhode Island clouds) all the Messier objects that we could see with our 16″ Celestron telescope, and talking about the nature of the universe. Andy quickly became one of our small group of local astronomy geeks, and I think we all sensed back then that he was the one headed for scientific greatness. I hadn’t seen him since those college days, but over the years I followed his amazing career, always thinking that he was one of those rare people who “had it all”. I was stunned and extremely sad to hear of his death; it is incomprehensible to me how someone so gifted in all areas of life could be unhappy enough to end that life. It shows what a fragile thing contentment is, for any of us. My heart goes out to Andy’s family and friends, and especially to his kids.
My intent is not to grind an axe in a forum whose purpose is to honor a man and mourn the death of someone who by all accounts appeared to be a wonderful man and brilliant scientist. I feel it my duty to impress upon people after my son’s death that depression is a monster illness, a killer if left untreated, and sometimes terminal. It renders the sufferer indifferent to or incapable of experiencing any of the vitality that permeated his or her life. It is not mere unhappiness that plagued Professor Lange, it was a scourge like no other: depression.
Other scientists who appeared to have had it all but who committed suicide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scientists_who_committed_suicide
Anyone who lives with a severe form of this disease and still manages to contribute to the world like Professor Lange did has my undying admiration. I believe Job had it easier from some of the accounts I’ve read of people who’ve suffered from severe depression.
Mrs. Go,
I ache for your loss and I’m sorry that my comment about “emotional intelligence” added to your grief. I wish I had used another term. I meant not emotional sensitivity or depth or range or vitality but merely the textbook definition that includes “managing and regulating emotions”. To quote wikipedia, “the emotionally intelligent person can harness emotions, even negative ones, and manage them to achieve intended goals.” Thinking about this now, and in light of everyone’s sorrow, I wish I had formulated my idea with more sensitivity.
Not to worry, teacher of gifted. As thinking, feeling fellow human beings, I think all of our minds and hearts are roiling with a lot of different thoughts and emotions. I think it’s also human nature to want answers to the reasons for these awful events. I have thought of the themes your post alludes to, as have others. I simply think we as a society need to learn more about depression and mental illness and try to contain or alleviate the symptoms of the sufferers. We can’t save everyone, but we can save some.
Let’s love those who have died these tragic deaths and hate the disease. I knew my son and from what I’ve read of Professor Lange and the other students who died, they seemed like exceedingly fine people. I am currently watching some courses on DVD on free will and determinism as well as the neurobiology of certain behaviors. These are age-old questions that we are puzzling over. Enlightened thinking may, however, change social policy, help the mentally ill, and lessen the suffering of those people left to grieve and suffer calumny in the wake of deaths by suicide. Here is what my husband spoke in Brian’s eulogy (a change in policy–in former times, suicides were not eulogized, not allowed to be buried in the same cemetery as believers;many were buried with a stake through their hearts and underneath a crossroads. So we’ve evolved, but we need to continue to evolve.):
“How easy it is for many of us to consider those who are academically inclined as two-dimensional people, bookish and isolated. Brian defied these stereotypes, and his life may be a wake-up call to us never to underestimate the mysteries of the human spirit and the sacred and unique wonder of each human being.”
I honor here the sacred and unique wonder of Professor Andrew Lange and his many, many accomplishments and gifts to the world in both his public and private life. May he rest in peace and may those of us who carry on honor the values and kindness he exemplified so well in life.
Andrew was an outstanding lecturer. Of all the lectures I attended at Caltech, his are among the most memorable. I am really saddened to hear of this tragic news and my thoughts go out to his friends and family.
Andrew is not forgotten.