Parry Moon

Parry H. Moon
Born (1898-02-14)February 14, 1898
Beaver Dam, Wisconsin
Died March 4, 1988(1988-03-04) (aged 90)
Nationality United States
Fields Electrical engineer
Institutions MIT
Alma mater University of Wisconsin
MIT
Known for Contributions to electromagnetic field theory
Holors
Notable awards 1974 Illuminating Engineering Society's Gold Medal

Parry Hiram Moon (/mn/; 1898–1988) was an American electrical engineer, who with Domina Eberle Spencer co-authored eight scientific books and over 200 papers on subjects including electromagnetic field theory, color harmony, nutrition, aesthetic measure, and advanced mathematics. He also developed a theory of holors.[1]

Biography

Parry Hiram Moon was born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin to Ossian C. & Eleanor F. (Parry) Moon. He received a BSEE from University of Wisconsin in 1922 and an MSEE from MIT in 1924. Unfulfilled with his work in transformer design at Westinghouse, Moon obtained a position as research assistant at MIT under Vannevar Bush. He was hospitalized for six months after sustaining injuries from experimental work in the laboratory. He later continued his teaching and research as an associate professor in MIT's Electrical Engineering Department. He married Harriet Tiffany, with whom he had a son. In 1961, after the death of his first wife, he married his co-author, collaborator and former student, Domina Eberle Spencer, a professor of mathematics. They have one son. Moon retired from full-time teaching in the 1960s, but continued his research until his death in 1988.

Scientific contributions

Moon’s early career focused in optics applications for engineers. Collaborating with Domina Eberle Spencer, he began researching electromagnetism and Amperian forces. The quantity of papers that followed culminated in Foundations of Electrodynamics,[2] unique for its physical insights, and two field theory books, which became standard references for many years. Much later, Moon and Spencer unified the approach to collections of data (vectors, tensors, etc.), with a concept they coined as “holors”.[1] Through their work, they became disillusioned with Einsteinian relativity and sought neo-classical explanations for various phenomena.

Bibliography

Books

Papers

References

  1. 1 2 3 Parry Moon & Domina Eberle Spencer, Theory of Holors, Cambridge University Press, 392pp. (1986) (ISBN 978-0521245852).
  2. 1 2 Parry Moon & Domina Eberle Spencer, Foundations of Electrodynamics, D. Van Nostrand Co., 314pp. (1960) (ASIN B000OET7UQ).
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