Christian J. Lambertsen, who developed early scuba system, dies at 93

Christian J. Lambertsen, a scientist and doctor who invented an underwater breathing system used by the military in World War II and later coined the "scuba" acronym by which such systems are widely known, has died. He was 93.

He died Feb. 11 at his home in Newtown Square, Pa., outside Philadelphia, Stuard Funeral Directors Inc. said Monday.

Lambertsen, born May 15, 1917, earned a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University. He began working on his breathing apparatus, using parts of anesthesia machines, even before he enrolled as a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania, according to medical school dean Arthur Rubenstein, who called him "one of our institution's most honored professors."

Lambertsen's background as a doctor, inventor and diver made him "the right man in the right place at the right time" for the development of an early version of the device later known as scuba or "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, according to a July biography in "The Year In Special Operations."

In 1941, Lambertsen worked with the Army's Office of Strategic Services to establish special underwater forces deployed in Burma, and later worked with the Navy to train surface frogmen to become divers. During this service, Rubenstein said, Lambertsen made the first exit from and reentry into a submerged submarine, marking the beginning of modern underwater demolition teams.

Back at the University of Pennsylvania, he converted an abandoned altitude chamber into a laboratory for the study of undersea and aerospace environmental physiology. In 1968, he established the Institute for Environmental Medicine, which has studied oxygen toxicity, diving-related diseases and the effects of hypoxic response in humans, exploring how humans can live in hostile environments from the oceans to space and in extreme temperatures.

Lambertsen retired as institute director in 1987 but continued his research as a professor emeritus, studying how high-pressure oxygen therapy can help in treatment of diseases. In 1992, he patented inergen, a fire-suppression product now used in commercial buildings but developed initially to extinguish fires in submarines and spacecraft, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Among his many honors are the highest civilian awards from the Department of Defense and Coast Guard. In 2000, Navy SEALS proclaimed him "the father of U.S. combat swimming."

Lambertsen is survived by sons Christian, David, Richard, Bradley and six grandchildren.

-- Associated Press

E. Gene Smith, collector of Tibetan texts, dies at 74

Ellis Gene Smith, who is believed to have compiled the largest collection of Tibetan books outside of Tibet, has died in New York. He was 74.

Smith died Dec. 16 at his Manhattan home, the New York Times reported. Jeff Wallman, executive director of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center in New York, said Smith had had diabetes and heart trouble in recent years.

Smith and a small group of friends founded the center in 1999. It holds nearly 25,000 books dating from the 12th century, including many of the seminal texts of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as secular works on a range of topics.

Smith was a scholar who became so interested in Tibetan culture that he converted to Buddhism as a young man and began acquiring the books. He was known for his vast knowledge of Tibetan literature and his passion for saving it.

His effort saved the books from isolation and destruction and made them accessible to scholars and Tibetan exiles around the world.

Tibetan is one of four great languages in which the Buddhist canon was preserved, said David Germano, a professor of Tibetan studies at the University of Virginia.

"In addition to the scriptural canon," he said, "there were histories, stories, autobiography, poetry, ritual writing, narrative, epics — pretty much any kind of literary output you could imagine."

The canon was threatened after China invaded and occupied Tibet in the 1950s. Refugees who fled smuggled some books out, but the Chinese destroyed many others.

"With the close of the Cultural Revolution, you essentially lost much of the Tibetan Buddhist literature," Germano said. "It was lost to the war; it was lost to the destruction of the monasteries, libraries and collections of books in Tibet that were systematically sought out and burned during the Cultural Revolution."

The Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center has started to digitize its collection and make the texts available over the Internet.

"The idea is to deliver the tradition back to the owners of the traditions," Smith told the Buddhist magazine Mandala in 2001.

Smith was born Aug. 10, 1936, to a Mormon family that traced its lineage to Hyrum Smith, the elder brother of Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith.

After attending several colleges, he stayed at the University of Washington, where he studied Mongolian and Turkish and earned a bachelor's degree in Far Eastern studies in 1959.

As Smith began working on a doctorate degree, he started studying Tibetan with a visiting lama, Deshung Rinpoche, but was limited because of the lack of available texts.

"We had no Tibetan books," Smith told The New York Times in 2002. "Deshung said: 'Go and find them. Find the important books and get them published.'"

It became Smith's mission.

"Without his vision, many of us in the field would not be doing what we're doing," said Leonard van der Kuijp, a professor of Tibetan and Himalayan studies at Harvard.

Smith is survived by three sisters, Rosanne Smith, Carma Wood and LaVaun Ficklin.

-- Associated Press

Denis Dutton, who founded Arts & Letters Daily, dies at 66

Denis Dutton, an author, academic and founder of the popular Arts & Letters Daily website, died Tuesday in New Zealand, his family said. He was 66.

Dutton, a professor of philosophy at New Zealand's Canterbury University, had been diagnosed with prostate cancer but continued working until his health deteriorated rapidly a week ago, said his son, Ben.

Dutton was widely known for his Arts & Letters Daily, a groundbreaking early aggregator featuring links to commentary on arts, literature and events.

He established the website in 1998 and continued as editor after selling it to the U.S.-based Chronicle of Higher Education the next year. London's Guardian newspaper described it in 1999 as "the best website in the world."

Born in Los Angeles on Feb. 9, 1944, Dutton was educated at UC Santa Barbara.

His recent work focused on Darwinian applications in aesthetics, explored in his best-selling book "The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution" in 2009, which he described as a study of art as a product of evolution.

"Whenever you have a pleasure, whether it's a pleasure of sweet and fat or the pleasure of sex or the pleasure of playing with your children, or being in love, that does suggest that there is some kind of Darwinian adaptation that underlies the phenomenon," he said last year in an interview with Radio New Zealand's National Radio.

While at the University of Michigan in 1976, he founded the academic journal "Philosophy and Literature," later taken over by Johns Hopkins University Press.

He became professor of philosophy at New Zealand's Canterbury University in 1984. It was from there that he launched Arts & Letters Daily.

Survivors include his wife, Margit; two children, Sonia and Ben; and brothers Doug and Dave.

We'll have more later at www.latimes.com/obits.

-- Associated Press

One year ago: Avery Clayton

 

Avery Clayton grew up paying little attention to the bits of African American history his librarian mother, Mayme Clayton, enjoyed collecting.

It wasn't until later that he realized the significance of what she had amassed.

"Her part was to assemble the collection. I really believe my part is to bring it to the world," Avery Clayton said, explaining his intention to establish the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum in Culver City.

The collection features rare books, manuscripts, photographs, films and other documents and artifacts. Some of the items were displayed at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino in an exhibit called "Central Avenue and Beyond: The Harlem Renaissance in Los Angeles,"  which opened last year.

"Most African American history is hidden," Avery Clayton, who co-curated the exhibit, told The Times in 2007. "What's exciting about this is that we're going to bring it back and show that black culture is rich and varied."

Clayton, a 62-year-old retired art teacher, died suddenly on Thanksgiving Day, one year ago. Read the complete Times obituary, and to learn more about the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum, visit its website, http://www.claytonmuseum.org/.

-- Claire Noland

 

Photo: Avery Clayton in 2009 at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, where the exhibit "Central Avenue and Beyond: The Harlem Renaissance in Los Angeles" was on display from October 2009 to February 2010. Credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

Margaret Burroughs, a founder of the DuSable Museum of African American History, dies at 93

Margaret Burroughs, an artist who co-founded one of the oldest African American history museums in the country, has died. She was 93.

Burroughs died Sunday in her sleep at her Chicago home, said Raymond Ward, a spokesman for the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago.

President Obama said in a statement that Burroughs was "widely admired for her contributions to American culture as an esteemed artist, historian, educator and mentor."

Burroughs founded the museum with her husband and others on Chicago's South Side in 1961.

The museum has artwork, exhibits on civil rights and a display on Chicago's first black mayor, Harold Washington. It was named after Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, widely regarded as Chicago's first permanent resident.

Read more at the Chicago Tribune: "Margaret Burroughs: Co-founder of DuSable Museum and prominent artist."

-- Associated Press

Photo: Margaret Burroughs in Chicago in February. Credit: Heather Charles / Chicago Tribune

One year ago: Thomas P. O'Malley

Thomas P. O'Malley was president of Westchester's Loyola Marymount University during a period of significant expansion for the university. He died one year ago at age 79.

O'Malley served as president of Loyola Marymount from 1991 to 1999. A skillful fundraiser, he oversaw a capital improvement drive that raised $144 million, $16 million more than its goal. Among projects completed during his tenure were the Hilton Center for Business and the Burns Recreation Center.

An inspired teacher, O'Malley was remembered for his enthusiastic engagement in campus life, from singing in the choir at Sunday Mass to portraying Pope Paul III in a faculty play.

"Father O'Malley was truly a renaissance man -- bigger than life, quick with wit, poetical and well-versed in languages," Loyola Marymount President Robert B. Lawton said in a statement.

Before Loyola Marymount, O'Malley worked at Boston College, where he was chairman of the theology department and was named the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1973. In 1980, he became president of John Carroll University in Cleveland, where he stayed for eight years.

For more, read Thomas P. O'Malley's obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Thomas P. O'Malley in 1998. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

One year ago: Qian Xuesen

"It was the stupidest thing this country ever did."

That's what former Navy Secretary Dan Kimball said, according to Aviation Week, about the U.S. deportation of Qian Xuesen, a rocket scientist who became known as the father of China's space and missile programs.

Chinese-born Qian came to the United States in 1935 on a scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and, after earning his masters degree there, went on to Caltech for his doctoral studies. He went on to teach and do research at both schools.

During his career, Qian contributed to the development of the "jet-assisted takeoff" technology, and he was the founding director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech.

But his brilliant career in the United States came to a screeching halt in 1950, when the FBI accused him of being a Communist and planning to exchange classified material. He denied the accusations and initially fought deportation.

After years of intense scrutiny and partial house arrest, however, he gave in and actively sought to return to his native China. In 1955, five years after his arrest, he was shipped off in an apparent exchange for 11 American airmen captured during the Korean War.

He was welcomed as a hero in China and became director of China's rocket research, a position from which he was credited with leading the country to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles, Silkworm anti-ship missiles, weather and reconnaissance satellites and putting a human in space in 2003.

For more on the scientist and the drama surrounding his deportation, read Qian Xuesen's obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Qian Xuesen in 1948.

Credit: Associated Press

One year ago: Claude Levi-Strauss

Claude Levi-Strauss was a French philosopher who is widely considered the father of modern anthropology because of his then-revolutionary conclusion that so-called primitive societies did not differ greatly intellectually from modern ones. He died one year ago at age 100.

Levi-Strauss' years spent studying tribes in Brazil and North America led him to the conclusion that the myths and cultural keystones of primitive peoples revealed an intelligence no less sophisticated than that of Western civilizations. Those myths, he argued, all tend to provide answers to such universal questions as "Who are we?" and "How did we come to be in this time and place?"

The philosopher and sociologist was briefly a warrior when World War II broke out and Germany invaded France. When his country was defeated and occupied, he gained employment at a school in Montpellier, but was soon fired because he was Jewish.

He lived in the United States for the rest of the war, working for the New School for Social Research in New York and serving as a cultural attache in the French Embassy in Washington. He returned to his home country after the war was over, earning his doctorate in anthropology at the University of Paris in 1948.

He had become a leading influence in France by the mid-1960s, though by the 1980s his ideas were being supplanted by those of the so-called post-structuralists, who argued that history and experience were far more important than universal laws in shaping human consciousness. More recently, however, his views have come back into popularity.

For more on his journeys, thoughts and influence, read Claude Levi-Strauss' obituary by The Times' Thomas H. Maugh II.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Claude Levi-Strauss in 2005. Credit: Pascal Pavani / AFP/Getty Images

Benoit Mandelbrot, mathematician who developed fractal geometry, dies at 85

Benoit Mandelbrot, 85, a well-known mathematician who was largely responsible for developing the field of fractal geometry, died of pancreatic cancer Thursday in Cambridge, Mass., according to his wife, Aliette.

The Polish-born French mathematician founded the field of fractal geometry, the first broad attempt to quantitatively investigate the notion of roughness. He was interested in the development and application of fractals, which he also showed could be used elsewhere in nature.

For years, he worked for IBM in New York. Later he became the Sterling Professor Emeritus of Mathematical Sciences at Yale University.

-- Associated Press

Maurice Allais, who won Nobel in economics, dies at 99

Nobel economics winner Maurice Allais, an early critic of shortcomings in the worldwide financial system that led to the latest crisis, has died. He was 99.

Allais, the only Frenchman to win the economics prize, died of natural causes Saturday at his home in Saint-Cloud southwest of Paris, said Yvon Gattaz, a fellow member of France's Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office hailed Allais' writings on theories of well-being, market shortcomings, growth models and decision-making in an uncertain environment known as the "Allais paradox."

Allais won the Nobel in economics in 1988, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited him for "pioneering contributions to the theory of markets and efficient utilization of resources."

Born May 31, 1911, the son of Paris cheese makers, Allais was a prolific economic theorist with ideas about balancing supply and demand that helped rebuild France's postwar economy. He also wrote about history and physics among the dozens of books he authored.

Trained as an engineer, Allais turned to economics after seeing the poverty and unemployment in the United States on a visit during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

His complex mathematical theories formed the basis for sorting out thousands of independent factors involved in marketing goods and services: How much should a train ticket cost, for example, or what is the right price for a kilowatt-hour of electricity?

Allais was said to believe the government's role was to ensure fair competition.

U.S. Nobel economic laureate Paul Samuelson was once quoted as saying that a generation of economic theory would have taken a different course if Allais' earliest writings had been in English.

In his autobiographical excerpts on the Nobel website, Allais said he would have become a physicist if the French National Center for Scientific Research had existed in 1938. In 1959, he experimented with a pendulum he had invented, conducting some 220,000 tests to demonstrate that Earth's gravity is neither constant nor always oriented in the same direction.

A year after a financial crisis erupted in 1998, Allais wrote a book whose French title translates as "The World Crisis Today" — a broad-scale appeal for reform of global financial and monetary systems.

"This book was prophetic," said Gattaz, a former head of France's leading employers' union. "He explained, 'If we don't follow my theories, if we continue this neo-liberal laissez faire — this financial speculation without severe controls — we're going to fall back onto the same phenomena of 1929 and 1998."

-- Associated Press

Photo: Maurice Allais in 1988. Credit: Associated Press

 

One year ago: Dr. Mahlon Hoagland

Dr. Mahlon Hoagland, who died one year ago, helped unravel the mystery of how cells build proteins by discovering a molecule called tRNA that brings individual amino acids to growing protein chains. He spent the latter part of his career writing books that explained biology to the public.

In the early 1950s, Hoagland came to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he teamed up with Paul C. Zamecnik on research that led to their famed discovery. In 1960, their work was followed up by Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner, who discovered a molecule dubbed messenger RNA that carries genetic information from nuclear DNA to the ribosome.

"He and Zamecnik deserved to win the Nobel Prize for their fundamental work on tRNA," said biologist James Watson, who shared the Nobel with Francis Crick for discovering the structure of DNA.

Hoagland had always argued that teaching was as crucial to scientific advancement as research and had disparaged many textbooks as needlessly complicated. After retiring, he teamed with artist Bert Dodson to create "The Way Life Works," which combines whimsical watercolors with concise explanations of scientific discovery and received the American Medical Writers Book Award in 1996.

For more, read Dr. Mahlon Hoagland's obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Mahlon Hoagland. Credit: Chris Christo / Worchester Telegram & Gazette

One year ago: Leon Kirchner

 

Leon Kirchner, a pianist, composer, conductor and Harvard music professor who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1967 for his String Quartet No. 3, died one year ago today at age 90. Describing Kirchner's music in a 2006 Times story, writer Allan M. Jalon suggested the reader "imagine an often rhapsodic yet unsentimental modernism."

Kirchner wasn't known for conforming to trends during his long career. He once wrote that "idea, the precious ore of art, is lost in the jungle of graphs, prepared tapes, feedbacks and cold stylistic minutiae."

Although born in New York City in 1919, Kirchner grew up in Los Angeles, where he was influenced by such European expatriate luminaries as Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg. He studied at L.A. City College, UCLA and UC Berkeley and went on to teach for many years at Harvard. There he became a mentor to a new generation of musicians including cellist Yo-Yo Ma and composer John Adams.

Read more about Kirchner in a 2006 Times profile and in the obituary that appeared in The Times.

-- Claire Noland

 Photo: Leon Kirchner in 2006. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times