His house in Altadena, a modest bungalow surrounded by exotic fruit trees that he and his wife planted, often serves as a late-night design-and-disputation forum, with a full bar in the living room. (When I visited on the day of the Curiosity landing, the mirror above the mantel was covered in half-erased equations.) The session at J.

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The whitewashed farmstead sits above terracing of fruit trees, and is surrounded by neat lawns bordered by a kaleidoscope of roses.

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