Vannevar Bush was born March 11, 1890, in Everett, Massachusetts, son of Universalist minister Richard Perry Bush and Emma Linwood Paine Bush. As a boy, he loved to tinker. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering from Tufts University in 1913, earning the first of his many patents while he was still in college. In 1913, he was employed by General Electric in Schenectady, New York, but returned to Tufts in 1914 as an instructor in mathematics. He earned a doctorate in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University in 1916 and became an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Tufts. He married Phoebe Davis in 1916, and they had two sons. In 1919, he joined MIT as associate professor of power transmission, became a full professor in 1923, and served as vice-president and dean of the School of Engineering beginning in 1932. His most notable research achievements in...