# Vannevar Bush

By [Jo Rhodes](https://paragraph.com/@jo-rhodes) · 2022-07-03

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**Vannevar Bush** ([/væˈniːvɑːr/](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English) [_van-NEE-var_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Pronunciation_respelling_key); March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American [engineer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer), inventor and science administrator, who during [World War II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II) headed the U.S. [Office of Scientific Research and Development](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Scientific_Research_and_Development) (OSRD), through which almost all wartime military R&D was carried out, including important developments in [radar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar) and the initiation and early administration of the [Manhattan Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation).[\[2\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush#cite_note-Distillations-2)

Bush joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at [Massachusetts Institute of Technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Institute_of_Technology) (MIT) in 1919, and founded the company that became the [Raytheon Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raytheon_Company) in 1922. Bush became vice president of MIT and dean of the [MIT School of Engineering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_School_of_Engineering) in 1932, and president of the [Carnegie Institution of Washington](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_computer), and for the [memex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memex).[\[2\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush#cite_note-Distillations-2) Starting in 1927, Bush constructed a [differential analyzer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_analyser), an analog computer with some digital components that could solve [differential equations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_equation) with as many as 18 independent variables. An offshoot of the work at MIT by Bush and others was the beginning of [digital circuit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_circuit) design theory. The memex, which he began developing in the 1930s (heavily influenced by [Emanuel Goldberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Goldberg)'s "Statistical Machine" from 1928) was a hypothetical adjustable [microfilm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microfilm) viewer with a structure analogous to that of [hypertext](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext). The memex and Bush's 1945 essay "[As We May Think](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_We_May_Think)" influenced generations of computer scientists, who drew inspiration from his vision of the future.[\[3\]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush#cite_note-Houston-3)

Bush was appointed to the [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Advisory_Committee_for_Aeronautics) (NACA) in 1938, and soon became its chairman. As chairman of the [National Defense Research Committee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Scientific_Research_and_Development). 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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation).

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*Originally published on [Jo Rhodes](https://paragraph.com/@jo-rhodes/vannevar-bush)*