far in showing that it is as feasible to make and control sound as it is to make and control light." Burris-Meyer told the Times, "We have tried to control sound so that the artist in the theatre can use it to make a good show. ... [T]he limitations on the auditory component of the show are off. The players may speak with the tongues of men and of angels. With sound you can compel the audience to laugh, to weep. You can knock them off their seats, you can lay them in the aisles." Work with U.S. Military During World War II, Burris-Meyer was a member of the U.S. War Department Planning Board, and served in the U.S. Navy, reaching the rank of Commander. Under National Defense Research Committee sponsorship, he led a program at Stevens which studied potential military applications of sound control and psychoacoustics. One outgrowth of this program was the development of Project Polly, an aircraft that blared speech from a mile up; it was used behind enemy lines to encourage peaceful surrenders. Burris-Meyer also served as a reserve officer and consultant with the U.S. Defense Department during the Korea and Vietnam wars. Books He was co-author (with Edward Cole) of Scenery for the Theatre (Little, Brown, 1938); author of Theatres and Auditoriums (Reinhold, 1949); co-author (with Lewis S. Goodfriend) of Acoustics for the Architect (Reinhold, 1957); and co-author (with Vincent Mallory) of Sound for the Theater (Radio Magazines, Inc., 1959). Resources Burris-Meyer's professional papers are catalogued at the Archives & Special Collections department at the Samuel C. Williams Library at the Stevens Institute of Technology. Further papers are housed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Library. References 20th-century American scientists 1902 births 1984 deaths City College of New York alumni Columbia University alumni Stevens Institute of Technology faculty Florida Atlantic University faculty American acoustical engineers Date of birth missing Date of death missing