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Planetary News: Search for Life (2005)

SETI Pioneer, MIT Professor Philip Morrison Dies at 89

The renowned and beloved Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) theoretical astrophysicist established himself in the front ranks of science during his 20s while serving as a group leader building the first atomic bomb on the Manhattan Project back in the 1940s, and then devoted much of the rest of his life speaking out against the nuclear arms race. Morrison became widely known for his research and professional contributions in 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. In 1980, he brought his stature and wisdom to the Advisory Council of The Planetary Society, on which he served since the Society's inception. But Philip Morrison will be most remembered for his pioneering work on SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

As the news spread throughout the scientific community, colleagues, scientists from other fields, students, and admirers around the world began paying homage to a physicist and a man who was known as much for his kindness as his far-reaching intellect.

"The world is a diminished place without Phil's imagination and vision," said Bruce C. Murray, co-founder of The Planetary Society, professor of planetary science and geology, Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and a past director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). "He was a powerful molder of the attitudes of a generation of people including myself."

"Phil was that rarest of things: a sensible visionary," reflected longtime SETI scientist Paul Horowitz, professor of physics, and electrical engineering at Harvard University. "It was his ability to link good sense to bold visions that made him a pioneer in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. His intellect was gentle and brilliant, and his remarks on any subject were insightful -- and always surprising. The world is diminished by his passing."

"If Earthlings ever find ET, substantial credit should go to Phil," said Dan Werthimer, chief scientist for SETI@home, University of California Berkeley.

Morrison was born on November 7,1915 in Somerville, New Jersey, but grew up in Wilkensburg, a small town near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He survived a bout with polio, which he contracted at the age of 3, but the disease left its telltale mark in the form of a limp that sometimes required him to use a cane, and during the last three decades of his life, a wheelchair.

He earned his Bachelor's of Science degree from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1936, and then pursued graduate studies in theoretical physics at the University of California at Berkeley under the supervision of J. Robert Oppenheimer, earning his Ph.D. in 1940. He taught briefly at San Francisco State College [now University] and then accepted a position at the University of Illinois, Urbana. It was there he got the call to serve his country, and in 1942, Morrison, then just 27 years old, joined Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project, working at both the University of Chicago, in Illinois, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), in New Mexico.

On July 16, 1945, at 5:29 a.m., Mountain Wartime in Alamogordo, New Mexico, he witnessed and participated in the Trinity test, the detonation of the world's first atomic bomb. He viewed the blast from a position just 10 miles from ground zero, and wrote an eyewitness report of his experience. After that, Morrison actively wrote and spoke out against nuclear war and the arms race, and the potential humanity now had to obliterate itself from the Earth.

In 1959, Morrison, who was then at Cornell University, and Giuseppe Cocconi wrote a paper proposing the potential of microwaves in interstellar communications, which was published in the journal Nature on September 19 of that year. With "Searching for Interstellar Communications," the two physicists became the first scientists to challenge the professional community to carry out a coordinated search for extraterrestrial signals from an intelligent civilization.

The Morrison-Cocconi paper laid the foundation for most of the SETI projects conducted in the past 35 years, and the suggestion that electromagnetic signals were the most promising means for interstellar communications became the underlying assumption of all searches, including the optical SETI searches. The assumption that any alien signal would exhibit a Doppler drift has also been incorporated into SETI projects, which check for signals at drifting frequencies. Perhaps most important was their theory that a "universal frequency" probably exists -- a frequency that extraterrestrials would most likely use for their transmissions -- which they suggested to be 1420 megahertz. Notably, that frequency has remained, to this day, the most popular frequency used by SETI projects.

Despite the giggle factor that SETI elicited -- which was quite loud at that time -- the presence of an extraterrestrial signal from another intelligent civilization, Morrison and Cocconi argued, is consistent with all that is known about physics, communication via electromagnetic waves, and communication. "The probability of success is difficult to estimate," they concluded in the paper, "but if we never search, the probability of success is zero."

The Nature paper not only assured both physicists a place in science history, it set Morrison on a course that he would help chart for the rest of his life. "He was very distinguished, and because of his work on the Manhattan Project, he had a legitimacy as a scientist that other enthusiasts, like Carl Sagan for example, did not have at the time. So when Phil showed interest in SETI, it carried a lot of weight," explained Murray.

"In some ways, that was his most important contribution was legitimacy," Murray added. "And that paper, in Nature, gets to the legitimacy. Here he was -- a respectable physicist -- and that was a peer-reviewed paper published in an important journal. It's very difficult to describe to you now just how significant that was. He was the first major scientist with great legitimacy to further the idea that there could be intelligent societies on other planets -- that was sci-fi then. Even in the scientific community then, SETI was outside the mainstream of planetary exploration. That meant Phil was an enabler, because he was able to accept things that were not mainstream and say to others, 'It's okay to look and investigate.' He stayed with it, and contributed greatly to The Planetary Society, an organization created to pursue this kind of thing. He was an active member of our Advisory Council, and the kind of person you knew you could reach out to and he would be there."

Throughout the years, Morrison was a leader in organizing numerous conferences on related topics, including several NASA symposia on SETI, and along the way he inspired countless scientists, students, and seekers of extraterrestrial intelligence. "Phil had a profound effect on my life, getting me excited about astronomy and SETI at a young age," recalled Werthimer. "Thanks to Phil's inspiration, five million SETI@home volunteers from all over the planet are learning about the possibility of life elsewhere. We named the central SETI@home computer after Phil -- Philmor connects the SETI@home participants together and coordinates their efforts."

Morrison also had quite a following for the articles he wrote about "interesting things," as he put it, for Scientific American, and, together with his wife and partner, Phylis, he reviewed books for the magazine. They both served as active advocates for science education, and Phil garnered fame for his numerous books, as well as various films and television specials, including the film Powers of Ten, and the PBS series The Ring of Truth.

In 1971, Morrison was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and over the years earned many honors and awards, including the John P. McGovern Science and Society Award (1994) and the William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement (1997), as well as 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.

Morrison held the position of Institute Professor, Emeritus and Professor of Physics, Emeritus at MIT at the time of his passing. He held the rank of Institute Professor, the highest honor awarded by the MIT faculty and administration, since 1973, a title reserved for those who have demonstrated exceptional distinction by a combination of leadership, accomplishment and service in the scholarly, educational and general intellectual life of the Institute or wider community.

He is survived by a stepson, Bert Singer and by Singer's wife, Angela Kimberk. Phylis passed away in 2002.