A - Bomb Inventor Philip Morrison Dies

[Ghetta Life]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Obit-Morrison.html

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -- Philip Morrison, one of the inventors of the atomic 
bomb and an early leader in the search for intelligent life elsewhere in the 
universe, has died. He was 89.

Morrison was a group leader during the Manhattan Project, which launched the 
age of nuclear weapons, and was present for the detonation of the first 
atomic bomb on July 14, 1945 in New Mexico.

''We knew we had done something remarkable and terrifying,'' he later said 
of that day.

Morrison also helped assemble the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, 
and was part of a scientific team sent to assess bomb damage after Japan's 
surrender ended World War II.

The damage that he saw from conventional and atomic bombs convinced him of 
the need for arms control.

Morrison's views on disarmament led to accusations that he was a communist 
sympathizer, and he was called to testify before the U.S. Senate Internal 
Security Subcommittee in 1953.

During the 1950s, Morrison began to concentrate on theoretical astrophysics. 
In 1959 he and Guiseppe Cocconi proposed a ''discriminating search'' for 
radio signals emanating from extraterrestrial beings.

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