Philip Morrison papers

Philip Morrison (1915-2005) earned a BS degree from the Carnegie Institute for Technology in 1936. In 1940 he earned a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of California at Berkeley, under the supervision of J. Robert Oppenheimer. For the next two years he taught physics at San Francisco State College and at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign.

From December 1942 to 1944 Philip Morrison served with the Manhattan Project, Metallurgical Laboratory, University of Chicago. From October 1944 to 1946 he was with the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos Laboratory as physicist and group leader, working with the components and the testing of the first atomic bomb July 16, 1945.

He was then sent as part of Los Alamos Team, Project A (Alberta), to the Pacific command, Mariana Base, Tinian Island, to assist in the final assembly of the bombs dropped in Hiroshima, Japan on August 6th, and in Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945. On September 6, he joined the military mission led by General Thomas Farrell to Hiroshima (September 8-September 14) and Nagasaki (September 19 to October 8) to inspect the effects of the atomic bomb explosions.

He was an advocate for nuclear disarmament after the war, and was a founding member and first president of the Federation of American Scientists.

In 1946, Morrison left Los Alamos Laboratory and joined the physics faculty at Cornell University, where he remained until he came to MIT in 1964 as a visiting professor of physics, becoming a permanent faculty member in 1965.

In 1973 Morrison was designated an MIT Institute Professor, the highest honor awarded by the MIT faculty and administration. In 1984, Morrison's faculty colleagues at MIT selected him to be the James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award Lecturer for the academic year 1984-85.

Philip Morrison was known for his research and education work. He was a contributing staff member of the Physical Science Study Committee, which was organized to improve the teaching of physics in U.S. school.

Research areas were quantum electrodynamics, nuclear theory, radiology, isotope geology and, since the 1950s, in cosmic-ray origins and propagation, gamma-ray astronomy and other topics in high-energy astrophysics and in cosmology.

He was among the first scientists (in 1959) to call upon the professional community to begin a coordinated search for interstellar communications using a microwave search. His many publications and speeches, beyond research and astronomy, centered on two large issues: nuclear and conventional war and American policy; and the teaching and public understanding of physics and science in general. He authored or co-authored many books on these subjects, including THE PRICE OF DEFENSE, which he co-authored with five other students of the arms issue. The book, published in 1979, was the first to propose a detailed alternative defense posture for the United States.

A regular reviewer of books on science for Scientific American since 1965, Morrison also narrated and helped script films on science for Charles and Ray Eames. He appeared widely on radio and on British, Canadian and American television in a number of science programs and series, most visibly as author-presenter (with his wife, the late Phylis Morrison) of a six-part national Public Broadcasting System series, "The Ring of Truth," which first aired in 1987. He and his wife co-authored a book, The Ring of Truth: An Inquiry Into How We Know What We Know, (Random House, 1987) as a companion to the series.

His memberships included the Federation of American Scientists, American Physical Society (fellow), the American Astronomical Society (council, 1977-79), the International Astronomical Union, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia.

Among his awards are the Pregel Prize of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Babson Prize of the Gravity Foundation, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Westinghouse Science Writing Award, the Oersted Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers, the Priestly Medallion of Dickinson College, the Presidential Award of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1980; the Public Science Medal of the Minnesota Museum of Science, the American Institute of Physics' Andrew Gemant Award and the Wheeler Prize (with Phylis Morrison) of the Boston Museum of Science.

Adapted from MIT News Office article and Vita.

"Philip Morrison, 1915-2005, A Biographical Memoir" by Leo Sartori and Kosta Tsipis. NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, 2009.