Philip Morse
- Born: August 6, 1903 (Shreveport, Louisiana)
- Died: September 5, 1985 (Concord, Massachusetts)
Education
- 1926: BS, Case School of Applied Science
- 1927: MA, Princeton University
- 1929: PhD, Princeton University (Physics)
Major Positions
- 1929–1930: Princeton University, Instructor in Physics
- 1930–1931: University of Munich and Cambridge University, International Research Fellow
- 1931–1934: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Assistant Professor of Physics
- 1934–1939: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Associate Professor of Physics
- 1939–1968: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor of Physics
- 1946–1948: Brookhaven National Laboratory, Director
- 1949–1950: United States Department of Defense, Director of Research, Weapons Systems Evaluation Group
- 1968–1985: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor Emeritus
Other Positions
- 1939–1942: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Director, Underwater Sound Laboratory
- 1939–1945: Harvard University, Supervisor, Sound Control Laboratory
- 1942–1945: United States Navy, Director, Operations Research Group
- 1944–1945: Office of Scientific Research and Development, Assistant Chief, Office of Field Service
- 1950–1951: Acoustical Society of America, President
- 1952–1952: Operations Research Society of America, President
- 1953–1969: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Director, Operations Research Center
- 1955–1967: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Director, Computation Center
- 1957–1977: Annals of Physics, Editor
- 1972–1972: American Physical Society, President
Selected Part-Time Positions
- 1946–1950: Member, Science Advisory Committee, United States Navy
- 1946–1950: Member, Council, American Physical Society
- 1948–1949: Member, Board of Trustees, RAND Corporation
- 1950–1960: Member, Advisory Panel to the Mathematics Division, National Bureau of Standards
- 1950–1962: Member, Board of Trustees, RAND Corporation
- 1952–1958: Member, Science Advisory Committee, Ordnance Department, United States Army
- 1952–1960: Member, Advisory Panel on Computing Machines, National Science Foundation
- 1955–1960: Member, Board of Trustees, Institute for Defense Analyses
- 1956–1960: Chair, Committee on Mathematical Tables, National Research Council
- 1958–1964: Member, Board of Trustees, Adage, Inc.
- 1959–1965: Chair, Advisory Panel on Operations Research, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
- 1960–1965: Member, Committee on the Uses of Computers, National Research Council
- 1962–1965: Member, Committee on Natural Resources, National Research Council
- 1962–1968: Chair, Advisory Panel on Operations Research, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
- 1965–1966: Member, Telecommunications Science Panel, United States Department of Commerce
- 1968–1978: Member, Board of Trustees, New England Regional Computer Network
- 1975–1980: Chair, Governing Board, American Institute of Physics
Selected Awards and Honors
Archival Resources
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Online Finding Aid
Published Resources
Herman Feshbach, "Philip McCord Morse: 1903-1985", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences
Philip M. Morse, In at the Beginnings: A Physicist's Life (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977)
Larry Owens, "Where Are We Going, Phil Morse? Changing Agendas and the Rhetoric of Obviousness in the Transformation of Computing at MIT," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 18 (1996): 34-41
