Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Philip Morrison, 89, died April 22



New York Times Obituary

His book reviews in Scientific American, written with his wife Phylis, used to be one of the highlights of the month. Every holiday season they had a children's book column, which was a wonderful source of gift ideas.
I attended one of his Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence lectures in 10-250 at MIT. On the one hand, the whole idea was to find bug-eyed monsters in outer space, on the other hand, he was full of practical nuts-and-bolts communication and engineering details. Here's article of his on the PBS web site: Hunt for Alien Worlds.
He and his wife regularly attended the ART theater in Cambridge. I was there with a friend who excitedly pointed them out at the front of the theater (he was in a wheelchair). I was very surprised that she had even heard of this particular MIT physics professor much less be able to pick him out of a crowd. It turned out his PBS series was currently showing, he had become a TV star!

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