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Professor John Maynard Smith 1 , F.R.S. ( 6 January 1920 - 19 April 2004) was a classical geneticist and leading theorist in evolutionary biology, particularly population genetics. His contributions also included work as an aeronautical engineer, and as a game theory mathematician. He took a second degree after the Second World War, reading genetics under J.B.S. Haldane, and published several important papers and books. He died peacefully of lung cancer in his chair at his home in Lewes, East Sussex on April 19th 2004. He was survived by his wife Sheila and their children. 1 Biography
1.1 Early years
John Maynard Smith was born in LondonLondon is the capital of the United Kingdom and of England, and with over seven million inhabitants in the Greater London area, is the second-most populous conurbation in Europe (after Moscow). From being Londinium the capital of the Roman province of Bri, the son of a surgeon but following his father's death in 1928 the family moved to ExmoorExmoor National Park is a national park situated on the Bristol Channel coast of Devon and Somerset in South West England. The park is 693 km˛ (267 mile˛) of hilly open moorland. Exmoor is one of the first British National Parks, designated in 1954, and i, where he became interested in natural historyNatural history is an umbrella term for what are now usually viewed as a number of distinct scientific disciplines. Most definitions include the study of living things (e. biology, including botany and zoology); other definitions extend the topic to inclu.
He went to Eton CollegeEton College is a public school (that is, an independent, fee-paying secondary school) for boys in Eton, Berkshire near Windsor in England. It boards approximately 1,200 boys between the ages of 13 and 18 who enjoy some outstanding facilities at a cost of but was purportedly unhappy there, but developed an interest in DarwinismThis article is about Darwinism as a philosophical concept; see evolution for the page on biological evolution; modern evolutionary synthesis for neo-Darwinism; evolutionism for the advocacy of such, and also evolution (disambiguation . Darwinism is a ter and mathematicsMathematics is commonly defined as the study of patterns of structure, change, and space; more informally, one might say it is the study of "figures and numbers". In the formalist view, it is the investigation of axiomatically defined abstract structures, having read the work of J.B.S. Haldane.
On leaving school, he joined the Communist Party of Great BritainThe Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was a political party in the United Kingdom, which existed from 1920 to 1991. Formation The party was founded in 1920 after the Third International decided that greater attempts should be made to establish commu and started studying engineeringEngineering is the application of science to the needs of humanity. This is accomplished through knowledge, mathematics, and practical experience applied to the design of useful objects or processes. Professional practitioners of engineering are called en at Trinity College Cambridge. When the second world war broke out in 1939, he defied his party's line and volunteered for service. He was rejected, however, because of poor eyesight and was told to finish his engineering degree, which he did in 1941. He later quipped that "under the circumstances, my poor eyesight was a selective advantage - it stopped me getting shot". In 1941 he married Sheila Matthew, and they were later to have two sons and one daughter (Tony, Carol and Julian). Between 1942 and 1947 he applied his degree to military aircraft design.
