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50th anniversary of Vannevar Bush's passing

An approaching anniversary date of former MIT Chairman and Dean of Engineering Dr. Vannevar Bush prompts me to write today. As his sole biographer has just highlighted in IEEE Spectrum, this Friday will mark 50 years since the Jun. 28, 1974 passing of this individual whose footprint looms large on global history [1].

I feel the reason for this lack of familiarity is that the Institute hasn't collectively introspected during the intervening decades over what it means to be so closely associated with this pivotal individual, even while it was irrevocably transformed by him in practice. He formed part of the nascent superstructure of cold war hysteria, generally accommodating HUAC/red-scare activity until it finally reached home with his colleague J Robert Oppenheimer as depicted in last year’s blockbuster film. empathy to teach desire to ensure that others can inform themselves through openly accessible science, so that they are poised to collectively unlock achieving complex technical goals in the face of uncertain prospects for success.

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