Parry Moon
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Parry Hiram Moon (; February 14, 1898 – March 4, 1988) was an American
electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
who, with
Domina Eberle Spencer Domina Eberle Spencer (September 26, 1920 – 2022) was an American mathematician who was Professor at the University of Connecticut. Biography Spencer was born on September 26, 1920, and earned her Ph.D. in 1942 from the Massachusetts Institute o ...
, co-wrote eight scientific books and over 200 papers on subjects including
electromagnetic field An electromagnetic field (also EM field) is a physical field, varying in space and time, that represents the electric and magnetic influences generated by and acting upon electric charges. The field at any point in space and time can be regarde ...
theory, color harmony,
nutrition Nutrition is the biochemistry, biochemical and physiology, physiological process by which an organism uses food and water to support its life. The intake of these substances provides organisms with nutrients (divided into Macronutrient, macro- ...
, aesthetic measure and advanced
mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
. He also developed a theory of
holor Parry Hiram Moon (; February 14, 1898 – March 4, 1988) was an American electrical engineer who, with Domina Eberle Spencer, co-wrote eight scientific books and over 200 papers on subjects including electromagnetic field theory, color harmony, ...
s.


Biography

Moon was born in
Beaver Dam, Wisconsin Beaver Dam is a city in Dodge County, Wisconsin, United States, along Beaver Dam Lake (Wisconsin), Beaver Dam Lake and the Beaver Dam River. The population was 16,708 at the 2020 census, making it the largest city primarily located in Dodge Co ...
, to Ossian C. and Eleanor F. (Parry) Moon. He received a BSEE from
University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...
in 1922 and an MSEE from
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...
in 1924. Unfulfilled with his work in
transformer In electrical engineering, a transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple Electrical network, circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces ...
design at Westinghouse, Moon obtained a position as research assistant at
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...
under
Vannevar Bush Vannevar Bush ( ; March 11, 1890 – June 28, 1974) was an American engineer, inventor and science administrator, who during World War II, World War II headed the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), through which almo ...
. 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 Domina Eberle Spencer (September 26, 1920 – 2022) was an American mathematician who was Professor at the University of Connecticut. Biography Spencer was born on September 26, 1920, and earned her Ph.D. in 1942 from the Massachusetts Institute o ...
, a professor of mathematics. They had 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 Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...
applications for engineers. Collaborating with Spencer, he began researching
electromagnetism In physics, electromagnetism is an interaction that occurs between particles with electric charge via electromagnetic fields. The electromagnetic force is one of the four fundamental forces of nature. It is the dominant force in the interacti ...
and Amperian forces. The quantity of papers that followed culminated in ''Foundations of Electrodynamics'',Parry Moon & Domina Eberle Spencer, ''Foundations of Electrodynamics'', D. Van Nostrand Co., 314pp. (1960) (ASIN B000OET7UQ). 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 "holors". Through their work, they became disillusioned with
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
's
theory of relativity The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated physics theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical ph ...
and sought neo-classical explanations for various phenomena.


Holors

Moon and Spencer invented the term "holor" (;
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
ὅλος "whole") for a mathematical entity that is made up of one or more "independent quantities", or "merates" (; Greek μέρος "part") as they are called in the theory of holors. In modern parlance, holors are precisely multidimensional arrays of real numbers, and the terminology of holors is very rarely encountered. See the appendix of for a concise description of holors.


Bibliography


Books

* Parry Moon, ''The Scientific Basis of Illuminating Engineering'', McGraw-Hill, 608pp. (1936) (ASIN B000J2QFAI). * Parry Moon, ''Lighting Design'', Addison-Wesley Press, 191pp. (1948) (ASIN B0007DZUFA). * Parry Moon, ''A Proposed Musical Notation'', (1952) (ASIN B0007JY81G). * Parry Moon & Domina Eberle Spencer, ''Foundations of Electrodynamics'', D. Van Nostrand Co., 314pp. (1960) (ASIN B000OET7UQ). * Parry Moon & Domina Eberle Spencer, ''Field Theory for Engineers'', D. Van Nostrand Co., 540pp. (1961) (). * Parry Moon & Domina Eberle Spencer, ''Field Theory Handbook: Including Coordinate Systems, Differential Equations and Their Solutions'', Spring Verlag, 236pp. (1961) (). * Parry Moon & Domina Eberle Spencer, ''Vectors'', D. Van Nostrand Co., 334pp. (1965) (ASIN B000OCMWTW). * Parry Moon & Domina Eberle Spencer, ''Partial Differential Equations'', D. C. Heath, 322pp. (1969) (ASIN B0006DXDVE). * Parry Moon, ''The Abacus: Its History, Its Design, Its Possibilities in the Modern World'', D. Gordon & Breach Science Pub., 179pp. (1971) (). * Parry Moon & Domina Eberle Spencer, ''The Photic Field'', MIT Press, 267pp. (1981) (). * Parry Moon & Domina Eberle Spencer, ''Theory of Holors'', Cambridge University Press, 392pp. (1986) ().


Papers

* * * * * * * * * * * * *


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moon, Parry H. American electrical engineers University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Engineering alumni MIT School of Engineering alumni MIT School of Engineering faculty 1898 births 1988 deaths People from Beaver Dam, Wisconsin 20th-century American engineers