Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

[Phys-L] Fwd: passing of philip morrison



Begin forwarded message:

From: John Mugno <JMUGNO@EASTROCKAWAYSCHOOLS.ORG>
Date: Thu Apr 28, 2005 10:25:33 PM America/New_York
To: OPHUN-L@LISTSERV.ONEONTA.EDU
Subject: passing of philip morrison
Reply-To: John Mugno <JMUGNO@EASTROCKAWAYSCHOOLS.ORG>

NATION
Philip Morrison, A-bomb physicist
directoryads
LOS ANGELES TIMES
The Los Angeles Times is a Tribune Co. newspaper.

April 27, 2005

Philip Morrison, one of the youngest physicists to work on the
Manhattan Project and a leading voice in the post-World War II efforts
to contain the bomb, died Friday.

The professor emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology who
also was one of the godfathers of the search for extraterrestrial
life, was 89.

Morrison died at his home in Cambridge, Mass., according to an
announcement from MIT. Cause of death was not reported.

Hindered by the aftereffects of a childhood bout with polio and
hounded by the House Un-American Activities Committee for a youthful
flirtation with communism - as well as later unsubstantiated charges
that he was a nuclear spy for Russia - Morrison became a strong moral
voice on defense topics and, later, a prolific writer on science.

He wrote more than a dozen books on topics ranging from the
development of the Babbage calculator to the search for
extraterrestrial life and, with his wife Phylis, composed more than
1,500 book reviews for Scientific American magazine, as well as many
appearances on radio and TV, most notably on PBS' "The Ring of Truth."

Morrison was 29 when he was called into the Chicago office of fellow
University of California, Berkeley, graduate Robert F. Christy, who
recruited him into the war effort by citing the danger if Germany
produced the bomb first. Morrison worked with Enrico Fermi in Chicago
to refine methods to produce plutonium, then moved to Los Alamos,
N.M., to help construct the bomb's core.

His was a particularly tricky project that physicist Richard Feynman
called "Tickling the Tail of the Dragon" - trying to determine how
much uranium or plutonium was necessary to start a spontaneous chain
reaction without blowing himself up in the process.

In September 1945, with the war over, Morrison became part of the team
that went to Japan to assess the damage from the two atomic bombs
dropped there. His impression, he said, was that the obliteration of
Hiroshima was "matchless in human misery." He became a prominent voice
arguing against nuclear proliferation.

Convinced that state institutions such as the University of California
at Berkeley were vulnerable in the postwar hysteria, Morrison took a
physics post at Cornell University, where he hoped to avoid
controversy. But his prewar flirtation with communism led to an FBI
inquiry and pummeling in the press. The attacks led to widespread
calls for his resignation. Morrison cut back on political activities,
retreating into the world of science and literature in a period he
later recalled as being "hateful."

Morrison then turned to astrophysics and, in 1959, he and Cornell
colleague Giuseppi Cocconi concluded that simple radio waves could
propagate for long distances, easily crossing the light-years between
stars. Morrison left Cornell for MIT in 1964, devoting his remaining
research life to cosmic ray origins and other topics in high-energy
astrophysics and cosmology.

Morrison was born in Somerville, N.J., in 1915 and grew up in
Wilkensburg, Pa., outside Pittsburgh. He contracted polio at age 3 and
was housebound for almost five years. Polio left him with a limp
requiring the use of a cane and he spent the last 30 years in a
wheelchair.

To entertain the young recluse, his father bought a crystal radio set
that allowed him to listen to early broadcasts from Westinghouse radio
in Pittsburgh, a gift that triggered a lifelong interest in
communication.

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics, SUNY-Buffalo State College
222SCIE BSC, 1300 Elmwood Ave , Buffalo NY 14222 USA 716-878-3802
<macisadl@buffalostate.edu> <http://PhysicsEd.BuffaloState.edu>
_______________________________________________
Phys-L mailing list
Phys-L@electron.physics.buffalo.edu
https://www.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l