No . 136 The Trusty Servant contributions to theoretical chemistry , which some felt deserved a Nobel Prize . After chairs at King ’ s London and Cambridge , in 1967 he switched his interests to Machine Intelligence and co-founded a Unit of that name at Edinburgh University funded by the Science Research Council . Later , the SRC commissioned James to write a report on the future of AI , the publication of which in 1973 created a furore , whose reverberations are still being felt to the disadvantage of the UK ’ s standing in the field .
Freeman became universally recognised as a polymath of the highest order . His achievements ranged over the whole gamut of mathematics , physics and the state of humankind , and are far too numerous even to summarise . In 1952 he took up a life-time appointment at Princeton ’ s Institute of Advanced Studies and US citizenship in 1957 . His visits to the UK often included a brief stay at his sister Alice ’ s house in St James ’ s Terrace , Winchester where I would then dine with the great man .
He held no particular affection for WinColl : - his father , Sir George , had been our Master of Music 1924-37 before going on to be the Director of the Royal College of Music - but he did accept the honour of being received Ad Portas in 2011 .
Michael was an oceanographer who spent his life successfully theorising on waves . Moving effortlessly between universities and institutions in the UK and the USA , often using the National Institute of Oceanography as a base , he was revered by the select band of likeminded scientists .
Oliver forged an international reputation in Number Theory and is widely known for his “ Sieve of Atkin ” which was a computer programme designed to generate prime numbers in the wake of the age-old Sieve of Eratosthenes . He emigrated to the USA in 1970 and became a Professor at the University of Illinois , Chicago . He was the quirkiest of the six of us and , like Christopher ( and myself ), an organist .
So that leaves James and me , one pair out of a possible fifteen within the sextet , but the only pair who developed an intimate life-long friendship embracing our two families and with our careers constantly entwining . Our respective ambitions were clear : James saw himself as a pure mathematician at Trinity Cambridge , while I hoped to become the Headmaster of one of our best schools , preferably Winchester .
That neither ambition was ever fulfilled is owing to C . P . Snow who had , in 1941 , ensconced James in a room in the Aerodynamics Division of the NPL . Then in 1942 he ensconced me in the same room to work on low-drag aerofoil design and boundary-layer control . So for over a year , James and I were closeted by ourselves in the same room . It was an arrangement which , given our two strong personalities , could have been disastrous . In fact , it was there that we developed the strong mutual respect which underpinned our later life-long intimacy .
James had already established his reputation . I then made my name by inventing the Thwaites Flap which , but for a little matter of atmospheric dust , could have revolutionised lowspeed flight . I also designed the wing sections of the up-and-coming Comet aircraft , so in 1947 the Professor of Aeronautics at Imperial College snapped me up , while James , after a couple of years back at Trinity , was snapped up by the Mathematics Department at Manchester , which made him a Professor in 1950 .
College XV in 1942 featuring Atkins and Lighthill
By that year , however , my school ambitions had taken the better of me and I returned to Winchester as the junior mathmā don out of six . But I spent the school holidays writing my magnum opus “ Incompressible Aerodynamics ” which had been commissioned by the then
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