Robert Warren Morse

Robert Warren Morse, a low-temperature physicist and an authority in underwater sound, a university teacher and administrator, and a naval official, died of emphysema at his home in Falmouth, Massachusetts, on 19 January 2001.

Morse was born in Boston on 25 May 1921 and graduated from Bowdoin College in 1943 with a BS degree in physics. He then married and received a commission in the US Navy. These were two important guideposts toward his future life. He left the navy at the end of World War II, going to Brown University as a graduate student in physics. He received an MS degree in physics in 1946 and a PhD in theoretical acoustics under Bruce Lindsay in 1948.

His service in the navy stimulated what was to be a lifelong love of the sea; he maintained a small powerboat, and he devoted much of his early research to underwater sound, both for Brown and for the navy. Morse subsequently remained at Brown, becoming an assistant professor of physics in 1949. He later became a professor of physics (1958), department chair (1960), and dean of the college (1962). In 1956, as a member of the National Academy of Science’s Project Nobska, he helped create the Polaris missile submarines. He also served as chair of NAS’s Committee on Undersea Warfare.

Morse achieved fame in 1957 for his research on ultrasonic absorption in superconductors. He developed an ultrasonic technique for determining the gap in the density of states of unpaired electrons in a superconductor. This measurement provided an important verification of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory of superconductivity.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Morse as Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research and Development. Morse collaborated with Admiral Hyman Rickover in the development of the NR-1, a small nuclear submarine capable of exploring the ocean floor and thus extremely useful in oceanographic research. Morse left the navy post in 1966 to become president of Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio. He then presided over its merger in 1967 with Western Reserve University. As was the case for most college presidents in that era, he struggled to maintain a balance between the raging student protests over the Vietnam War and the views of conservative boards of trustees. He took pride in the fact that, in a city torn by race rioting, he never had to call the police to put down a campus disruption, either over race or over the war.

Ultimately, Morse’s liberal views fell victim to his board of trustees and he resigned as president in 1971. He then joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, as director of research in 1971. In 1973, he became the associate director of research and dean of graduate studies. He helped to found Woods Hole’s joint academic program with MIT. He also headed the Woods Hole Marine Policy Center until his retirement in 1983. Always interested in research, he endowed in 1999 a Chair for Excellence in Oceanography in support of research at Woods Hole. He also established the Alice Cooper Morse Fund for the Performing Arts at Bowdoin College, in memory of his late wife.

The varied nature of Morse’s career is reflected in an anecdote about a Brown alumnus serving in the US Marine Corps. During a simulated invasion on the Spanish coast, the young man climbed the coastal slope and came upon Morse, who was then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. “Dean Morse,” cried the student, “what are you doing here?” The answer might have been that Morse was at home anywhere—in the navy, in academic administration, in teaching, or in research.

All who made contact with Morse found him to have a warm and engaging personality. He was a first-class teacher, an excellent researcher, and an administrator of great skill and courage.