http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=593103&ct=754423

25 April 2005

Philip Morrison, 1915 – 2005

If one is called upon to name the true pioneers of SETI, there are only
three: Frank Drake, Giuseppe Cocconi, and Philip Morrison. Morrison died on
April 22, at the age of 89.

It was while he was at Cornell University, in the late 1950s, that Morrison,
together with his physicist colleague Cocconi, made the fundamental
calculation that justified a search for signals from other worlds. He was
motivated to do this while considering the generation and detection of gamma
rays, and whether these types of particles could be used to send signals
across interstellar distances. While this seemed possible, it occurred to
the two researchers that radio might be a better communication medium
(Morrison had acquired a crystal set at a very early age for listening to
the broadcasts from KDKA, the country’s first commercial radio station, in
his home town of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Morrison soon became an avid
radio amateur.)

The physicists wrote up their calculations showing that radio technology,
even at the level current nearly a half-century ago, was easily capable of
sending information across light-years of distance. They speculated that,
since advanced societies might be making their presence known with such
emissions, a search for signals should be made by radio astronomers. This
result appeared in an article the two physicists wrote in 1959 for the
British journal, Nature – and is the undisputed seminal paper in the history
of modern SETI research. A year later, Frank Drake made the first deliberate
search for the type of signals hypothesized by Coconni and Morrison.

Morrison soon joined the MIT faculty, where he continued to be involved with
the SETI enterprise, helping to facilitate meetings and publications on the
subject. While never a major component of his research, his insights and
creativity continued to supply important input to this field. As an example,
when the NASA SETI program was inaugurated at Arecibo, Puerto Rico in 1992,
Morrison gave a review talk on the subject that was remarkable for the
breadth and freshness of its ideas.

Many will be familiar with Morrison from his popular book Nothing is Too
Wonderful to be True, as well as the many book reviews he and his wife
Phylis wrote for Scientific American. He also narrated the well-known short
film by the Eames brothers, Powers of Ten, and authored a book of the same
title.

It is with regret that the SETI Institute notes the passing of an
extraordinarily talented scientist, and one who laid the foundation for what
has become such an earnest, exciting and promising enterprise.

-- Seth Shostak