Albert Hibbs
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Albert R. Hibbs was a noted mathematician, known worldwide as "the voice of JPL". He was born in Akron, Ohio on October 19, 1924. He died on February 24, 2003 of complications following heart surgery.
Hibbs was chosen to become an astronaut on an Apollo moon mission, but the program ended before his turn came.
In 1949, Hibbs and Roy Walford took time off, from graduate school and medical school respectively, to go to Reno and Las Vegas to beat the casinos at roulette. Studying biases in the roulette wheels, they made thousands of dollars (a significant sum at the time), variously estimated between $6,500 (Life magazine) and $42,000 (a Walford obituary).
In 1962, Hibbs began hosting a Saturday morning educational program on NBC television entitled Exploring. It covered mainly science, but several other subjects as well, including the arts. It featured segments with the Ritts puppets, cinematic short subjects, animated versions of famous legends, and music as well. It ran for several years, but received poor ratings, and was constantly being shifted around in the schedule.
Hibbs also studied under and wrote with Richard Feynman, such as in the book on path integrals and that particular formulation of quantum mechanics. He called upon his mentor at least once to provide recommendations to NASA for the selection of Hibbs into the Apollo program as an observer.
