John Backus (acoustician)

John Backus was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, where he studied at Reed College, receiving a BA in 1932.

He went on to graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he did research in nuclear physics at the Radiation Laboratory under Ernest Lawrence.

He was also a musician, trained as a performer on piano, bassoon, clarinet and other woodwinds and received the degree of MMus in conducting from the University of Southern California in 1959.

In his later career he turned increasingly to the study of musical acoustics, particularly those of wind instruments and organ pipes.

John Backus was a Renaissance man who in addition to music and physics was a highly skilled mountaineer.