Early Life, Education, and Military Service
Wilkes was born in Dudley, Worcestershire, England and grew up in Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, where his father worked on the estate of the Earl of Dudley. He was educated at King Edward VI College, Stourbridge and during his school years he was introduced to amateur radio by his chemistry teacher.
He went on to read Mathematics at St John's College, Cambridge from 1931-34, continuing to complete a Ph.D. in physics on the topic of radio propagation of very long radio waves in the ionosphere in 1936. He was appointed to a junior faculty position of the University of Cambridge through which he was involved in the establishment of a computing laboratory. He was called up for military service during WWII and worked on radar at the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE), and in operational research.
Read more about this topic: Maurice Wilkes
Famous quotes containing the words early, military and/or service:
“He had long before indulged most unfavourable sentiments of our fellow-subjects in America. For, as early as 1769,... he had said of them, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging.””
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“There was somewhat military in his nature, not to be subdued, always manly and able, but rarely tender, as if he did not feel himself except in opposition. He wanted a fallacy to expose, a blunder to pillory, I may say required a little sense of victory, a roll of the drum, to call his powers into full exercise.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Television could perform a great service in mass education, but there’s no indication its sponsors have anything like this on their minds.”
—Tallulah Bankhead (1903–1968)