The Caltech magazine, Engineering & Science, recently...

The Caltech magazine, Engineering & Science, recently compared scientist Edward Stone to Antony and Cleopatra, Heloise and Abelard, Cyrano de Bergerac and other “legendary figures of romance.”

And why not? Stone, Caltech’s vice president for astronomical facilities, was recently named one of the Top 10 Romantic People of 1989 by Korbel Champagne. The Voyager project scientist was honored for “revealing the uncommon romance of the heavens to the common man,” according to Rebecca Sydnor, who is identified as Korbel’s “director of romance.”

“It was certainly unexpected,” Stone said Monday. “But after I thought about it, I realized how important it was that the Voyager team managed to communicate the excitement we felt” during Voyager’s historic mission to the outer planets, including Neptune.

Others honored included actress Michelle Pfeiffer, the late actor and actress Laurence Olivier and Lucille Ball, tennis player Chris Evert, the rescue workers of the San Francisco earthquake and Hurricane Hugo, ballerina Suzanne Farrell, cartoon-strip character Charlie Brown, San Francisco quarterback Joe Montana, and actor Tom Cruise and his wife, Mimi Rogers.

Well, nine out of 10 ain’t bad. Cruise and his wife recently announced they’re divorcing.

As for Montana, he just signed a shoe contract with L.A. Gear. Joe, you romantic guy, was it for love or money? Whatever, the announcement was a sad day for local gridders. Imagine--an L.A. company forced to reach out to a city 400 miles away to find a quarterback.

Despite all this talk of romance, Valentine’s Day just won’t be the same now that Donald and Ivana Trump say they’re divorcing. The billionaire real estate tycoon, who is believed to control 20% of the company that owns the Ambassador Hotel site, had been threatening to build a 150-story skyscraper on the property before the breakup. We’ll all be waiting for the settlement to see who gets L.A. and who gets New York.

No word on whether Trump phoned local radio station KLSX-FM during its “Love ‘em Or Leave ‘Em” weekend. But the station said he wasn’t the lucky caller who captured the grand prize--a pair of 1-carat diamond earrings as well as a $1,000 voucher from a law firm “toward a divorce . . . or other legal work.” What kind of a director of romance does this station have, anyway?

Jerry LeMay of Canoga Park writes: “I think the doctor who attended the birth of the three giants pictured in your (Feb. 6) column must have miscounted!”

Yes, those weren’t triplets separated at birth. They were quads.

LeMay found a fourth giant on Sherman Way in Van Nuys. The big guy is a look-alike for the aforementioned golfer lurking near the San Diego Freeway in Carson, the lumberjack standing guard over a Long Beach hardware store, and the attendant fronting an East L.A. gas station.

No. 4 has even appeared on TV, said his boss Scott Ward, manager of Big Brand Tire Co.

“They cut him down and took him up into the Angeles Forest for an episode of the ‘A-Team,” Ward said.

Not that the giant battled Mr. T or anything; it was just a bit part as an extra in the background.

Sad to say, Valentine’s Day seems to have no meaning for the quads. They’re true loners.