Vannevar Bush (pronounced van-NEE-var; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor, and science leader. During World War II, he managed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), which oversaw most military research and development work. This included important advances in radar and the start of the Manhattan Project. Bush believed that scientific research was vital for protecting the country and improving the economy. He played a key role in creating the National Science Foundation.

In 1919, Bush joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 1922, he started a company that later became Raytheon. In 1932, he became vice president of MIT and dean of the MIT School of Engineering. In 1938, he became president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

Throughout his career, Bush received patents for many of his inventions. He is best known for his work on analog computers and for the memex. In 1927, he built a differential analyzer, a mechanical computer that could solve complex math problems with up to 18 variables. His work at MIT helped begin the study of digital circuit design. The memex, which he started developing in the 1930s, was a hypothetical device inspired by Emanuel Goldberg’s "Statistical Machine" from 1928. It was a microfilm viewer with a structure similar to how information is connected in hypertext. The memex and his 1945 essay "As We May Think" influenced many computer scientists.

In 1938, Bush was appointed to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and became its chairman. As chairman of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) and later director of OSRD, he organized thousands of American scientists to apply science to warfare. During World War II, Bush acted as the first presidential science advisor. He started the Manhattan Project and made sure it received top priority from government leaders. In his 1945 report, Science, The Endless Frontier, Bush asked the U.S. government to increase support for scientific research and to create the National Science Foundation.

Early life and education

Vannevar Bush was born on March 11, 1890, in Everett, Massachusetts. He was the third child and only son of Richard Perry Bush, a local Universalist pastor, and Emma Linwood (née Paine), who came from an important family in Provincetown. He had two older sisters named Edith and Reba. He was named after John Vannevar, a family friend who had studied at Tufts College with his father. In 1892, the family moved to Chelsea, Massachusetts, and Bush graduated from Chelsea High School in 1909.

He attended Tufts College, just like his father. He was a popular student and held leadership roles, including vice president of his sophomore class and president of his junior class. During his senior year, he managed the football team. He joined the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and dated Phoebe Clara Davis, who also lived in Chelsea. Tufts allowed students to earn a master's degree at the same time as their bachelor's degree. For his master's thesis, Bush created and patented a device called a "profile tracer," which helped surveyors map land. It looked like a lawn mower, had two bicycle wheels, and used a pen to draw the shape of the ground as it moved. This was the first of many inventions he would create. In 1913, he graduated with both a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science degree.

After graduating, Bush worked at General Electric (GE) in Schenectady, New York, earning $14 per week. As a "test man," he checked equipment to ensure it was safe. He later moved to a GE plant in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he worked on high voltage transformers. However, after a fire broke out at the plant, he and other test men were temporarily suspended from their jobs. In October 1914, he returned to Tufts to teach mathematics. During the summer of 1915, he worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard as an electrical inspector. He received a $1,500 scholarship to study at Clark University under Arthur Gordon Webster, but Webster wanted him to focus on acoustics, a popular field at the time. Bush chose to leave instead of studying a subject he was not interested in.

Bush then enrolled in the electrical engineering program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). To support himself financially and prepare for marriage, he completed his doctoral thesis, titled Oscillating-Current Circuits: An Extension of the Theory of Generalized Angular Velocities, with Applications to the Coupled Circuit and the Artificial Transmission Line, in April 1916. His adviser, Arthur Edwin Kennelly, asked him to do more work, but Bush refused. The department chairman approved his decision, and Bush earned his doctorate in engineering from both MIT and Harvard University. He married Phoebe in August 1916. Together, they had two sons: Richard Davis Bush and John Hathaway Bush.

Early engineering activities

Vannevar Bush began working at Tufts University, where he joined the American Radio and Research Corporation (AMRAD). AMRAD started broadcasting music from the campus on March 8, 1916. The owner of the station, Harold Power, hired Bush to manage the company's laboratory, offering him a higher salary than he earned at Tufts. In 1917, after the United States entered World War I, Bush worked with the National Research Council. He tried to create a device to detect submarines by measuring changes in Earth's magnetic field. The device worked as planned, but only on wooden ships. It failed to function properly on metal ships like destroyers.

Bush left Tufts in 1919 but continued working for AMRAD. He later joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he worked under Dugald C. Jackson. In 1922, he collaborated with MIT professor William H. Timbie to write Principles of Electrical Engineering, an introductory textbook. AMRAD’s profitable contracts from World War I were canceled, so Bush tried to improve the company’s success by developing a thermostatic switch. The switch was invented by Al Spencer, an AMRAD technician, during his free time. AMRAD’s leaders were not interested in the device but allowed its sale. Bush found support from Laurence K. Marshall and Richard S. Aldrich to create the Spencer Thermostat Company, which hired Bush as a consultant. The company quickly earned more than a million dollars. It merged with General Plate Company to form Metals & Controls Corporation in 1931 and later merged with Texas Instruments in 1959. Texas Instruments sold the company to Bain Capital in 2006, and it became Sensata Technologies in 2010.

In 1924, Bush and Marshall worked with physicist Charles G. Smith, who had invented a voltage-regulator tube called the S-tube. The S-tube allowed radios, which previously needed two types of batteries, to use mains power. Marshall had raised $25,000 in 1922 to start the American Appliance Company, which aimed to build silent refrigerators. Bush and Smith were among the company’s five directors. Marshall later changed the company’s name to Raytheon to produce and sell the S-tube. This venture made Bush wealthy, and Raytheon eventually grew into a major electronics company and defense contractor.

Starting in 1927, Bush built a differential analyzer, an analog computer that could solve complex equations with up to 18 variables. This invention was inspired by earlier work by Herbert R. Stewart, one of Bush’s students, who created an integraph to solve first-order equations in 1925. Another student, Harold Hazen, suggested improving the device to solve second-order equations. Bush recognized the importance of this idea, as these equations were common in physics but difficult to solve. Under Bush’s guidance, Hazen built the differential analyzer, a machine with electrical and mechanical parts that could simulate and plot equations. Engineers like Edith Clarke from General Electric used the device to solve problems related to power transmission. For this invention, Bush received the Franklin Institute’s Louis E. Levy Medal in 1928.

At MIT, Bush taught Boolean algebra, circuit theory, and operational calculus using methods developed by Oliver Heaviside. When Harold Jeffreys published a book on operational methods in 1927, Bush responded by writing Operational Circuit Analysis in 1929 to help electrical engineering students. In the book’s preface, he acknowledged Parry Moon, Samuel Wesley Stratton, and M.S. Vallarta, who helped create early class notes.

One of Bush’s graduate students, Claude Shannon, began studying digital circuit design theory while working on the analytical engine. In his master’s thesis, A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits, Shannon described how Boolean algebra could be used in electronic circuits. In 1935, Bush was asked by OP-20-G to design the Rapid Analytical Machine (RAM) to help break codes. He was paid $10,000 for the project, but it went over budget and was not completed until 1938. Although the machine was unreliable, it was an important step toward developing codebreaking technology.

In 1930, MIT’s administration was reformed with Karl T. Compton as president. Bush and Compton disagreed about limiting professors’ outside work, but they later developed a strong professional relationship. Compton appointed Bush to the newly created role of vice president in 1932. That same year, Bush became the dean of MIT’s School of Engineering. These positions paid $12,000 annually plus $6,000 for expenses.

The companies Bush helped create and the technologies he developed provided him with financial stability. This allowed him to focus on academic and scientific work that he believed improved the world before and after World War II.

World War II

In May 1938, Bush accepted an important job as president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW), which was founded in Washington, D.C. Also called the Carnegie Institution for Science, it had 33 million dollars in funding and spent about 1.5 million dollars each year on research. Most of this research happened at its eight main laboratories. Bush became president on January 1, 1939, and earned a salary of 25,000 dollars. This role allowed him to shape research policies in the United States and give informal advice to the government about science. Soon, Bush found that the CIW had serious financial problems and had to ask the Carnegie Corporation for more money.

Bush had disagreements with Cameron Forbes, the chairman of the CIW’s board, and with John Merriam, his predecessor, who kept giving unwanted advice. A big problem was Harry H. Laughlin, the head of the Eugenics Record Office, whose work Merriam had tried to stop without success. Bush believed Laughlin was a fraud and made removing him a top priority. In June 1938, Bush asked Laughlin to retire, offering him an annuity, which Laughlin reluctantly accepted. The Eugenics Record Office was renamed the Genetics Record Office, its funding was greatly reduced, and it closed completely in 1944. Senator Robert Reynolds tried to bring Laughlin back, but Bush told the trustees that an investigation would show Laughlin was physically unable to lead an office and that his scientific reputation was also weak.

Bush wanted the institute to focus on hard science. He reduced funding for Carnegie’s archaeology program, which slowed progress in the United States. He also believed the humanities and social sciences had little value and cut funding for Isis, a journal about the history of science and technology. Later, Bush explained that he had concerns about studies that involved interviewing people, reading materials, and writing books that few people read.

On August 23, 1938, Bush was appointed to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the group that later became NASA. When NACA’s chairman, Joseph Sweetman Ames, became ill, Bush, as vice chairman, had to take his place. In December 1938, NACA asked for 11 million dollars to build a new aeronautical research laboratory in Sunnyvale, California, to support the existing Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. California was chosen because it was close to major aviation companies. This plan was supported by Major General Henry H. Arnold of the U.S. Army Air Corps and Rear Admiral Arthur B. Cook of the navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics, who planned to spend 225 million dollars on new aircraft. However, Congress was not convinced of the need for the new lab, and Bush had to appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee on April 5, 1939. This was a difficult experience for Bush, as he had never spoken to Congress before, and the senators did not agree with his arguments. More effort was needed before Congress approved funding for the new center, called the Ames Research Center. By this time, war had started in Europe, and the poor performance of American aircraft engines, like the Allison V-1710, became clear. The NACA later asked for funding to build a third center in Ohio, which became the Glenn Research Center. After Ames retired in October 1939, Bush became chairman of NACA, with George J. Mead as his deputy. Bush remained a member of NACA until November 1948.

During World War I, Bush noticed that civilian scientists and the military did not work well together. Concerned about the lack of coordination in scientific research and defense planning, Bush proposed creating a federal agency to oversee these efforts. He asked the NACA secretary to draft a plan for the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) to present to Congress. However, after Germany invaded France in May 1940, Bush realized time was critical and approached President Franklin D. Roosevelt directly. Through Roosevelt’s uncle, Frederic Delano, Bush arranged a meeting with Roosevelt on June 12, 1940, where he presented a one-page description of the agency. Roosevelt approved the proposal quickly, writing “OK – FDR” on the page.

Before the NDRC was officially created by the Council of National Defense on June 27, 1940, Bush had already begun working as its chairman. The NDRC operated with limited funding from the president’s emergency fund. Bush appointed four leading scientists to the NDRC: Karl Taylor Compton (MIT president), James B. Conant (Harvard president), Frank B. Jewett (National Academy of Sciences president and Bell Labs director), and Richard C. Tolman (Caltech graduate school dean). Rear Admiral Harold G. Bowen and Brigadier General George V. Strong represented the military. The civilians already knew each other, so the NDRC started working immediately. The NDRC was based at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Each member had specific responsibilities, while Bush oversaw coordination. A few projects, like the S-1 Section, reported directly to him. Compton’s deputy, Alfred Loomis, said that “if any American leaders died in the summer of 1940, the president would be first, and Dr. Bush would be second or third.”

Bush often said that his most important contribution to the war effort was helping the Army and Navy share information. He worked well with Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and his assistant, Harvey H. Bundy, who described Bush as “impatient” and “vain” but also “one of the most important, able men I ever knew.” His relationship with the navy was more difficult. Rear Admiral Harold G. Bowen, director of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), saw the NDRC as a rival and tried to shut it down. After a series of conflicts, the NRL was placed under the Bureau of Ships, and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox added a negative report to Bowen’s file. After the war, Bowen tried to create a rival group within the navy.

On August 31, 1940, Bush met with Henry Tizard, a British scientist, and arranged meetings between the NDRC and the Tizard Mission, a British scientific team. At a meeting on September 19, 1940, American scientists described their research on microwave technology, including an experimental radar with a 10 cm wavelength. However, they admitted their device lacked enough power and was not working well. Taffy Bowen and John Cockcroft from the Tizard Mission then showed a more advanced device called a cavity magnetron, which produced about 10 kW of power at 10 cm, enough to detect a submarine’s periscope at night from an aircraft. To use this invention, Bush decided to create a special laboratory. The NDRC allocated the lab 455,000 dollars for its first year. Loomis suggested the lab be run by the Carnegie Institution, but Bush convinced him otherwise.

Post-war years

In the 1930s, Vannevar Bush introduced the idea of the memex, a device he imagined as a tool to help people store and access information quickly. He described it as a machine that could hold all of a person’s books, records, and communications, and be used like a personal library. The memex was meant to work like the human brain, connecting ideas through associations instead of using traditional indexes or folders. It was also intended to help scientists study how the brain works. The memex is considered an early example of the World Wide Web.

After thinking about the benefits of tools that could help with memory, Bush wrote a detailed essay titled "As We May Think" in 1945. In it, he predicted that future encyclopedias and other resources would be connected by links, making them easier to use with a device like the memex. The essay was published in The Atlantic magazine in July 1945. A shorter version was later published in Life magazine with drawings showing what the memex might look like.

Douglas Engelbart, who later helped invent the computer mouse, read "As We May Think" and was inspired by Bush’s ideas. Ted Nelson, who created the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia," was also influenced by the essay.

Bush worried that scientists might struggle with too much information. He wrote that as research grew, scientists could become overwhelmed by the work of others.

The Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) remained active after World War II but was reduced in size by 1946–1947. Bush pushed for its closure before the war ended. During the war, the OSRD gave money to eight organizations, with MIT receiving the most. Attempts to exempt the OSRD from government rules failed, leaving Bush and others at risk of legal trouble. He wanted the OSRD to be shut down as soon as possible.

After the OSRD was dissolved, Bush and others hoped a new government agency would take over its work. He believed basic research was important for national security and economic growth. In his 1945 report, Science, The Endless Frontier, he argued that discoveries in science and technology depend on research in areas like physics and medicine, not social sciences. He also supported the idea of the federal government funding scientific research.

In 1945, a bill called the Kilgore bill was introduced in Congress. It proposed a single science administrator and focused on applied research. A competing bill, the Magnuson bill, supported basic research and protected private patents. A compromise version of the two bills passed the Senate but failed in the House. A new bill in 1947 aimed to create the National Science Foundation (NSF) to replace the OSRD. This bill included many of Bush’s ideas, such as letting scientists manage the agency. However, President Truman rejected the bill, saying the leaders of the NSF were not properly accountable. The OSRD was officially closed on December 31, 1947, without a replacement.

Without the NSF, the military took over some of the OSRD’s responsibilities. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) helped fund scientific work. Bush helped create the Joint Research and Development Board (JRDB), which later became the Research and Development Board (RDB). The RDB promoted military research until the NSF was created. By 1953, the Department of Defense spent $1.6 billion yearly on research, with most of it going to physics.

Bush’s role as chairman of the RDB was less powerful than his earlier position with the OSRD. He was unhappy with the role and left after a year. He remained skeptical about rockets and missiles, writing in 1949 that intercontinental ballistic missiles would not be possible for a long time.

During President Truman’s time, John R. Steelman became a key figure in science policy. Bush’s influence declined, though he was still respected. In 1949, he led a panel that confirmed the Soviet Union had tested its first atomic bomb. In 1952, he advised the U.S. to delay testing the hydrogen bomb and seek a test ban with the Soviet Union to avoid creating a new, dangerous weapon.

Final years and death

After having a stroke, Bush passed away in Belmont, Massachusetts, from pneumonia on June 28, 1974, at the age of 84. He was survived by his sons, Richard (a surgeon) and John (president of Millipore Corporation), six grandchildren, and his sister Edith. Bush’s wife had died in 1969. He was buried at South Dennis Cemetery in South Dennis, Massachusetts, following a private funeral service. Later, a public memorial was held at MIT, where Jerome Wiesner stated, "No American has had more influence in the growth of science and technology than Vannevar Bush."

Awards and honors

• In 1925, Bush was chosen to join the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• In 1934, Bush was chosen to join the United States National Academy of Sciences.
• In 1937, Bush was chosen to join the American Philosophical Society.
• In 1943, Bush received the AIEE's Edison Medal for helping to advance electrical engineering by using math to solve engineering problems and for his important service to the nation during the war research program.
• In 1945, Bush was given the Public Welfare Medal by the National Academy of Sciences.
• In 1949, he received the IRI Medal from the Industrial Research Institute for his work leading research and development.
• President Truman gave Bush the Medal of Merit with a bronze oak leaf cluster in 1948.
• President Lyndon Johnson gave him the National Medal of Science in 1963.
• President Richard Nixon presented him, along with James B. Conant and General Leslie R. Groves, with the special Atomic Pioneers Award from the Atomic Energy Commission in February 1970.
• In 1948, Bush was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 1955, he was made an Officer of the French Legion of Honor.

In 1980, the National Science Foundation created the Vannevar Bush Award to honor his contributions to public service. The Vannevar Bush papers are kept in several places, with most of the collection at the Library of Congress. Other papers are stored at the MIT Institute Archives and Special Collections, the Carnegie Institution, and the National Archives and Records Administration. In 2019, a national security intelligence company named Vannevar Labs was founded and named after Bush. In 2023, the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor is Michael Levin, an American developmental and synthetic biologist at Tufts University.

In popular culture

In the 1947 movie The Beginning or the End, Jonathan Hale plays Bush. In the 2023 movie Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan, Matthew Modine plays Bush.