Thursday, April 28, 2005

Philip Morrison, RIP

A nice obituary forPhilip Morrison, 1915 – 2005, on Space.com.

I met Morrison while in high school. He was really an inspirational figure. Our physics teacher, Mr. Burkhardt, was a fan, and took us to see him speak, I seem to remember, at both UCLA and Cal Tech. He talked about making the first atomic bomb, and about the search for intelligent life in the universe. He was really a charismatic guy, and after seeing him talk, and shaking his hand, I wanted to be a physicist. But, sorry to say, I somehow lost my math ability in college, and ended up studying television. While it was sad to read that he had died, it was good to see that I wasn't the only person to find him impressive and charismatic...