Phillip Morrison RIP

[adzel_3000]

Info here..<br /><br />http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1503_1.asp<br /><br />and<br /><br />http://planetary.org/news/2005/morrison-philip_obit_0425.htm

 

[Leovinus]

I think I remember watching him describing Voyager photos as them first came down from Jupiter. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[yevaud]

I met him. He was a local institution at MIT, and used to go for long sojourns down by the river - his wife pushing his wheelchair. A very approachable guy. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[pizzaguy]

<p>Here's a little blurb on him:<br /><br />Philip Morrison, ex-W8FIS (His ham radio callsign), is now a Silent Key (Ham Radio talk for dead) (Apr 26, 2005)<br /><br />-- Philip Morrison, a world-famous physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb and later became an outspoken critic of nuclear war and arms proliferation, died April 22. He was 89. SETI League Inc Executive Director Paul Shuch, N6TX (right in photo with Morrison), says he best remembers Morrison as a friend and mentor who co-authored the world's first serious scientific paper on SETI--the search for extraterrestrial intelligence--a 1959 paper "Searching for Interstellar Communications" in the British science journal Nature. Shuch called Morrison "a pioneer in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence through radio communication" who also chaired NASA's early study groups on SETI. According to Shuch, Morrison's boyhood interest in Amateur Radio motivated his interest in exploring the feasibility of microwaves for interstellar communication. In addition to being a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Morrison was a prolific author of books and articles and well as a TV producer and lecturer. He served on the board of advisors for the PBS TV science series NOVA and as a columnist and book reviewer for Scientific American. But his early fame came from his role in developing the A bomb during World War II. "Along with most of the bright young physicists of his generation, Phil Morrison spent the war years working on the Manhattan Project, the development of the first atomic bomb," says Shuch. "Unlike many of his Los Alamos colleagues, he went on to become a staunch pacifist, anti-war activist, opponent to nuclear proliferation and a co-founder of the Federation of American Scientists." Shuch says Morrison motivated his own interests in SETI and encouraged his SETI League efforts. Morrison also authored the jacket blurb for Shuch's ARRL hypertext book</p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="1"><em>Note to Dr. Henry:  The testosterone shots are working!</em></font> </div>