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JOHN DOVE ISAAC S III
1913-1980
BY ELMER P. WHEATON
JOHN lSAACS, world-renowned oceanographer and pioneer in
man's conquest of the oceans, died June 6, 1980, at his home in
Rancho Santa Fe, California. John Isaacs was a professor at the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography and since 1971 was also Direc-
tor of the University of California's statewide Institute of Marine
Resources.
Professor Isaacs was often described as a Renaissance man: scien-
tist, engineer, physical oceanographer, biologist, author, inventor,
and his favorite of all, teacher. His colleagues and students were
energized by the enthusiasm and unfettered imagination of this large
and warm man, who was thrilled with the challenge of the natural
universe. He was troubled at the unproductive ways in which poli-
tics could influence scientific progress and wrote, "I wonder at the
deep and unbridged gulf in communication that now cleaves our
vast fund of knowledge and understanding from those who create
policy and lead events.... "
In recent years his innovative developments had included tidal-
mediated harbor channel control, a dynamic breakwater, a search
system for underwater thermal and freshwater springs, a wave-pow-
ered generator, and research on salinity gradient power. His theories
on the oceanic food web and chemical uptake are broadly influenc-
ing pollution research and waste disposal design, as were his findings
in past levels of marine populations and chemical concentrations as
recorded in sea-bottom sediments.
131
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132
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
John Isaacs contributed broadly to the fields of marine biology,
fisheries, physical oceanography, climatology, and other marine sci-
ences. His contributions to engineering were considerable. He
developed new and important approaches to oceanic problems,
including deep-sea moorings, deep-sea free instruments, wave
refraction plotting systems, current meters and cameras, undersea
communication and signaling devices, trawls, and dredges. These
were novel, first-time accomplishments. Now they are in general
worldwide use.
Elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1977, he was
a rarity in academe, having achieved the status of Professor, Head of
a University of California institute, and election to membership in
the most prestigious scientific organizations: the National Academy
of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, and World Academy of Art and Science the
highest recognitions accorded a scientist by his peers and he
received all of this without a Ph.D. He was a prolific author and
could have converted many of his research projects into Ph.D. the-
ses, but he was too busy moving on to new challenges.
John Isaacs was born into a prominent Oregon pioneer family, in
Spokane, Washington, on March 28, 1913. He attended Oregon
State University in 1930-1931 and worked as a chemistry lab assist-
ant until a serious leg injury forced him to stop school. The mys-
teries of the deep sea were irresistible to John, and in 1939 and 1940
he went to sea as a commercial fisherman. From 1941 until 1943 he
worked for the Austin Company, and with no previous education in
engineering he worked out basic equations for stress in structures
and became Chief Project Engineer for the construction of the
Tongue Point Naval Air Station at Astoria, Oregon. He stopped
work to attend the University of California (UC) at Berkeley, where
he received his Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering in
1944. Until 1948 he worked as a Research Engineer at UC on the
waves, beaches, and amphibious landings, this work being directed
by Morrough P. O'Brien. Willard Bascom was John's assistant.
In 1948 John Isaacs went to the Scripps Institution of Oceanogra-
phy as an Associate Oceanographer in charge of the photography
program for Project Crossroads. He served as Assistant to the Direc-
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JOHN DOVE ISAACS III
133
tor, Roger Revelle, until 1955, when he became an Associate Profes-
sor. From 1958 to 1974 John Isaacs directed the activities of the
Marine Life Research Group, which is the university's portion of
the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations, a long-
term study of the ecology of the eastern North Pacific, the California
current, and its living resources. He became a full professor in 1961,
and in 1971 became Director of the Institute of Marine Resources
(IMR). During his years as Director, IMR expanded its programs
in scope and service to society, and under IMR the California Sea
Grant College Program became the largest of its kind in the Nation.
Scripps Director William A. Nierenberg said:
John Isaacs' life and career are coincident in what will be recognized as the
greatest era in oceanography. Isaacs is one of a handful of postwar pioneers in
man's conquest of the oceans. In his early years at the University of California
at Berkeley and his many years at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, he
was one of the small group who built the Scripps Institution to what it is today.
He was a world leader in his field. Isaacs' contributions were always a mixture
of the orthodox and unorthodox. He was involved with all aspects of man's
interventions in the oceans his favorite description of our many activities. John
Isaacs' passing represents a great loss to our community and will leave an
untillable void.
John Isaacs served in consulting, advisory, and editorial positions
for a variety of government committees, private businesses, founda-
tions, and societies. Since 1970 he had been Chairman of the Con-
sulting Board of the Southern California Coastal Water Research
Project, and in 1976 he became President and Chairman of the
Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Ocean Research in San
Diego. He also served as Chairman of the National Academy of
Sciences/National Research Council (NAS/NRC) Panel on Ocean
Engineering and was a member of the Mine Advisory Committee,
the President's Science Advisory Committee, and many other com-
mittees of national and international scope. More recently, he served
on the NRC Commission on Natural Resources, the Assembly of
Engineering, and the Marine Board.
In addition to the organizations already mentioned, Professor
Isaacs was a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the
California Academy of Sciences, a past President of the Pacific Divi-
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134
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
sion of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, Sigma Xi,
Challenger Society, Cosmos Club, Pi Mu Epsilon, American Society
of Limnology and Oceanography, and the Western Society of Natu-
ralists.
Dr. Roger Revelle, Director Emeritus of Scripps, said:
John Isaacs had more original scientific ideas every month than most scientists
have in a lifetime. His incredible creativity was famous among oceanographers
throughout the world, but its sources were perhaps not as well known. John's
ideas didn't simply spring fullblown out of his subconscious, but rather out of
perceptive observations of the ocean and its creatures and out of a profound,
almost intuitive, knowledge of the laws of physics and chemistry. John was one
of the very small number of marine scientists who can be called true oceanogra-
phers, in the sense that they are interested in everything about the ocean the
motions of the waters, the ways of life in the sea, the use of an ocean's resources,
and the meaning of the oceans for human history and for mankind's future. He
was cut off in his intellectural prime before he had a chance to make a grand
synthesis of his ideas into a wholly new way of looking at the ocean.
Dr. George Shor, Jr., Associate Director at Scripps and Professor
of Marine Geophysics, has said that "the most remarkable thing
about John was his constant flow of ideas enough to have kept him
busy for a hundred lifetimes. The ones he carried to completion have
impacted almost every branch of ocean science. He was a great
man- larger in many ways than the rest of us—but also a wonderful
person to know and to work with. He will be missed. It is as if a
mountain had disappeared. "
John and Mary Carol's home reflects their broad range of interest
in music, the arts, and horticulture. Their patio contains a sunken
fireplace surrounded by circular stone steps arranged for lively con-
versations with students and colleagues. Friends from all over the
world will miss those conversations around the crackling fire.
John Isaacs is survived by his wife, Mary Carol; his four children:
Dr. Ann Katherine Isaacs, Professor of Renaissance History in
Italy; Dr. Caroline Isaacs, geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey;
Jon Berkeley Isaacs, mechanic; Dr. Kenneth Isaacs, resident neurol-
ogist at the University of California San Diego Medical School; and
one grandson, Allesandro Marcello Isaacs of Pisa, Italy.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
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