Harvey Brooks (physicist)

Harvey Brooks (born August 5, 1915 in Cleveland , Ohio , † May 28, 2004 in Cambridge , Massachusetts ) was an American physicist in the field of applied physics . He was also active in science policy and was a scientific advisor to several US presidents.

Life

Brooks graduated from Yale University , which he left in 1937 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics . He began his doctoral thesis at the University of Cambridge , but then moved to Harvard University to work with the physicist and later Nobel Prize winner John Hasbrouck Van Vleck .

In 1940 he received his doctorate from Van Vleck and was accepted into the university's Society of Fellows . Membership enabled him to interact with other scholars at Harvard University on an interdisciplinary basis, such as the philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead , the historian Crane Brinton and the chemist and biologist Lawrence Joseph Henderson .

During World War II , Brooks was involved in the Harvard University's underwater sound laboratory in the development of a torpedo with an acoustically controlled target search, FIDO , which was used to combat submarines.

After the war he worked for General Electric in their Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory for four years from 1946 . In 1950 he returned to Harvard, where he became a professor in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science (DEAS). From 1957 to 1975 he was Dean of this area.

In 1976 he became the founding director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

In 1986 Brooks retired, but continued teaching and advising. Most recently at Harvard he was Benjamin Pierce Professor of Technology and Public Policy Emeritus at the Kennedy School and Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics Emeritus at DEAS.

Services

Brooks' areas of work included solid state physics , nuclear engineering , underwater acoustics, and later science and politics. He has served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the President of the United States in the governments of Dwight D. Eisenhower , John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson .

From 1956 to 1980 Brooks was chief scientific editor (editor-in-chief) of the scientific journal Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids .

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy appointed him to the National Science Board , of which he was a member until 1974. Brooks has chaired various commissions in the National Academy of Sciences , of which he has been a member since 1962, and the National Research Council . In 1961 he was accepted as an elected member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1966 he became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was its chairman from 1971 to 1976.

honors and awards

Brooks held honorary degrees from six universities, including Harvard and Yale. In 1993 the American Association for the Advancement of Science awarded him the Philip Hauge Abelson Prize.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Harvey Brooks. In: Physics History Network. American Institute of Physics , accessed January 5, 2018 .  
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Harvey Brooks. John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University , accessed January 5, 2018 .  
3. ^ Alumni: Harvey Brooks. Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs , January 6, 2017, accessed January 5, 2018 .  
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Lewis M. Branscomb: Biographical Memoirs: Harvey Brooks 1915-2004. (PDF file) National Academy of Sciences , 2014, accessed January 5, 2018 .