SCIENTIST, SCHOLAR, LEADER
Distinguished geophysicist, radioastronomer, atomic scientist, and science administrator, Merle Antony Tuve is acknowledged to be one of the best minds of this generation and one of America’s great innovators.
In the twenties he made crucial contributions to the investigation of the ionosphere. In the thirties he pioneered in the study of the atomic nucleus. He led a war-time effort in developing the proximity fuse. He subsequently conducted geophysical studies on the earth’s crust, and he has been creative in radioastronomy. His accomplishments have won the admiration of many scientists as well as recognition in the form of prizes. He is equally a thinker, a planner, and a doer. He is preeminent also in the organization of science and in bringing together scientific potential. During the thirties, for example, he organized a series of conferences on theoretical physics and brought together in Washington young men such as Bethe, Fermi, Gamow, Oppenheimer, Teller, Von Neumann, and Wigner. It was at such a conference in 1939 that Bohr revealed to an American group news of the discovery of uranium fission. While Tuve has always worked in collaboration with others, his accomplishments are largely his own. In his professional activities he has given far more than he has received. He has been a source of enthusiasm, ideas and judgment, warmth and inspiration. He seems happiest when in the presence of associates who can participate actively in rapid-fire give and take. In dealing with complex situations he is at his best, for he has a quick analytical mind that can explore all the aspects and ramifications of a problem. His driving energy and imagination permit him to discover and evaluate an enormous range of possibilities.
To Tuve scientific research is a way of communing with nature. It is more than that-it is a way of life. He finds esthetic satisfaction in creative activity, his own or that of others, and especially of individuals or small groups.
Therefore, for these distinguished accomplishments and attributes-as an eminently creative research scientist, as an effective organizer and administrator of science, and as a leader of and inspiration to his fellow men-the Cosmos Club of Washing ton is proud to name Merle Antony Tuve, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, as the recipient of the Third Cosmos Club Award.
