Bush, Vannevar (văn`əvər), 1890–1974, American electrical engineer and physicist, b. Everett, Mass., grad. Tufts College (B.S., 1913). He went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1919; there he was professor (1923–32) and vice president and dean of engineering (1932–38). During this period he devised a network analyzer to simulate the performance of large electrical networks. He is best known for his design of the differential analyzer, an analog computer that could solve differential equations with as many as 18 independent variables. From 1939 until 1955 he was president of the Carnegie Institution. From 1941 to 1945 he was also the director of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development, where he administered the U.S. war effort to utilize and advance military technology. He directed such programs as the development of the first atomic bomb, the perfection of radar, and the mass production of sulfa drugs and penicillin. In 1955 he returned to MIT, retiring in 1971. Bush wrote Endless Horizons (1975) and Modern Arms and Free Men (1985).

Bibliography

See his autobiography (1971); J. M. Nyce et al., ed., From Memex to Hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the Mind's Machine (1992); G. P. Zachary, Vannevar Bush: Engineer of the American Century (1997).

Bush, Vannevar

(born March 11, 1890, Everett, Mass., U.S.—died June 28, 1974, Belmont, Mass.) U.S. electrical engineer and administrator. He taught principally at MIT (1919–38, 1955–71). In the late 1920s and '30s, Bush and his students built several electronic analog computers to solve differential equations. He helped found Raytheon Co., and he served as president of the Carnegie Institute (1939–55). In 1941 he became director of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development, in which capacity he helped organize the Manhattan Project. By providing government support for university-based scientific research, the agency paved the way for postwar federal support of basic scientific research. As adviser to Pres. Franklin Roosevelt, he laid the groundwork for the establishment of the National Science Foundation (1950). An information retrieval and annotation system he described became the theoretical prototype of hypertext, the basis of the World Wide Web.

Bush, Vannevar (1890–1974) engineer, government official; born in Everett, Mass. With a varied background in academic studies, private industry (General Electric), and government research (including antisubmarine work for the U.S. Navy in World War I), he became an engineering professor, later dean, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1919–38). During these years he also kept his hand in the private sector as a consulting engineer, among other things founding the company that became the Raytheon Corporation. He also conducted research that led to several inventions including a differential analyzer (1928), a direct ancestor of the modern computer. As early as 1940 he was becoming active in organizing the U.S. scientists and engineers for the imminent war; this was formalized when he was appointed director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. After the war, he continued to serve as an adviser to various governmental boards and agencies on scientific policies. Through many years (1938–55) he also served as president of the Carnegie Institution. In his later years he published numerous articles and books for a broader public, including Modern Arms and Free Men (1949), which called for closer ties between responsible science and public policies.

Bush, Vannevar - Vannevar Bush