Born on May 13, 1913, in Portland, he prepared for college at Portland High School. Following his graduation from Bowdoin in 1935 summa cum laude, and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, he did graduate work at Harvard University and received his doctor of philosophy degree in physics in 1940. During World War II, he helped develop aiming systems for missiles and torpedoes for the military forces at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After the war, he taught physics at Rutgers University in New Jersey for many years, being promoted to the rank of full professor in 1957. He retired, and moved back to Maine in 1982. He was married in 1940 to Elizabeth Martin, who died in 1993, and is survived by a grandson, Tyson M. Weiss of Falmouth, and a granddaughter, Lisa M. Weiss, of Westbrook.