Vannevar Bush

Vannevar Bush
Bush in the 1940s
Chairman of the Research and Development Board
In office September 30, 1947 – October 14, 1948
President	Harry S. Truman
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Karl Compton
Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development
In office June 28, 1941 – December 31, 1947
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Position abolished
Chairman of the National Defense Research Committee
In office June 27, 1940 – June 28, 1941
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	James B. Conant
Chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
In office October 19, 1939 – June 28, 1941
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	Joseph Ames
Succeeded by	Jerome Hunsaker
Personal details
Born	(1890-03-11)March 11, 1890 Everett, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	June 28, 1974(1974-06-28) (aged 84) Belmont, Massachusetts, U.S.
Education	Tufts University (BS, MS) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (DEng)
Awards	Edison Medal (1943) Hoover Medal (1946) Medal for Merit (1948) IRI Medal (1949) John Fritz Medal (1951) John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science (1953) William Procter Prize (1954) National Medal of Science (1963) See below
Signature
Scientific career
Fields	Electrical engineering
Institutions	Tufts University Massachusetts Institute of Technology Carnegie Institution of Washington
Thesis	Oscillating-current circuits; an extension of the theory of generalized angular velocities, with applications to the coupled circuit and the artificial transmission line (1916)
Doctoral advisor	Dugald C. Jackson Arthur E. Kennelly[1]
Notable students	Claude Shannon Frederick Terman Charles Manneback Perry O. Crawford Jr. Samuel H. Caldwell

Vannevar Bush (/væˈniːvɑːr/ van-NEE-var; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almost all wartime military R&D was carried out, including important developments in radar and the initiation and early administration of the Manhattan Project. He emphasized the importance of scientific research to national security and economic well-being, and was chiefly responsible for the movement that led to the creation of the National Science Foundation.

Bush joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1919, and founded the company that became the Raytheon Company in 1922. Bush became vice president of MIT and dean of the MIT School of Engineering in 1932, and president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1938.

During his career, Bush patented a string of his own inventions. He is known particularly for his engineering work on analog computers, and for the memex. Starting in 1927, Bush constructed a differential analyzer, a mechanical analog computer with some digital components that could solve differential equations with as many as 18 independent variables. An offshoot of the work at MIT by Bush and others was the beginning of digital circuit design theory. The memex, which he began developing in the 1930s (heavily influenced by Emanuel Goldberg's "Statistical Machine" from 1928) was a hypothetical adjustable microfilm viewer with a structure analogous to that of hypertext. The memex and Bush's 1945 essay "As We May Think" influenced generations of computer scientists, who drew inspiration from his vision of the future.

Bush was appointed to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) in 1938, and soon became its chairman. As chairman of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), and later director of OSRD, Bush coordinated the activities of some six thousand leading American scientists in the application of science to warfare. Bush was a well-known policymaker and public intellectual during World War II, when he was in effect the first presidential science advisor. As head of NDRC and OSRD, he initiated the Manhattan Project, and ensured that it received top priority from the highest levels of government. In Science, The Endless Frontier, his 1945 report to the president of the United States, Bush called for an expansion of government support for science, and he pressed for the creation of the National Science Foundation.