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The following year, after earning his doctorate from Leiden, Schmidt won one of the greatest prizes available to a talented young astronomer: a Carnegie Institution fellowship. With it he gained entrée into the stimulating atmosphere of Pasadena's California Institute of Technology, and access to the fabulous astronomical complex in Southern California. There, all within easy driving distance of Los Angeles, the world's greatest telescopes point skyward. Atop Mount Palomar is the 200-in. Hale telescope and a 48-in. Schmidt (no relation) wide-angle scope. On Mount Wilson is a 100-in. telescope, one of the world's largest, and a 60-in. instrument that would be the pride of most other observatories. The twin 90-ft. antennas of one of the world's finest radio telescopes stare at the sky from nearby Owens Valley.
Schmidt was warmly accepted in Pasadena. "He was an ideal product of the Dutch school," says Jesse Greenstein. "In this country we tend to stress atomic and nuclear physics in astronomy. Schmidt came to us with more classical training. He had, and still has good sharp eyes at the telescope, an old-fashioned virtue in science."
When his two-year fellowship ended, Schmidt returned home, intent on educating his daughters in Holland. But the lure of Southern California was too great. "Those big telescopes are a little like drugs," he explains. "Once you've worked with them, it's hard not to return." In 1959 he accepted the offer of an assistant professorship at Caltech and came back to Pasadena. The following year, after immersing himself in the specialties of his American colleagues—spectroscopy, cosmic radiation and extragalactic phenomena—he took over the job of retiring Astronomer Rudolph Minkowski, who had been working on spectrograms of radio galaxies. Almost immediately, he found himself "struggling quietly" with the riddle of the curious objects that turned out to be quasars.
Relaxing Habit. Today he devotes part of his time to work on basic theory "trying to figure out what it all means," part to preparation for classwork. He usually teaches radio astronomy or galactic dynamics for three hours a week to Caltech's bright undergraduate and graduate students. This semester, however, normal staff rotation has left him without any classes, enabling him to devote full time to the pursuit of his quasars. Despite the challenges of his job, though, he takes pains never to miss dinner at home. "It is," says Corrie Schmidt, "the only time he really has with the children." At bedtime, Anne, 5, Maryke, 7, and Elizabeth, 9, all stand prim and proper in line, awaiting their ritual kus (Dutch for kiss) from Daddy.
In the evening, Maarten usually mixes work with relaxation. "If I'm doing difficult creative work," he explains, "I keep at it for only a quarter of an hour or so at a time." In between these sessions, he sometimes watches television with Corrie, easing his busy brain with such shows as The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Get Smart! Another relaxing habit, imported from Holland like the Schmidts, is an occasional belt or two of volatile Dutch Bols gin.