Sir Ambrose Fleming: A Note on the Man Himself

As a schoolboy in the 1930s, working towards my school-leaving examinations in Lincoln, mathematics was not my strong point. My parents, knowing my interest in electrical engineering, and wishing to encourage an interest that seemed to them more likely to lead to a satisfactory career than my other ambition — playing drums in a jazz band - subscribed on my behalf to a periodical on the subject. Published by Newnes, it was eventually bound into four quite large volumes. Of all the many useful things I found in it were several chapters on mathematics, written with the electrical engineer in mind. They were beautifully clearly written, and for the first time I began to understand some very basic bits of mathematics, and to realize why they were important.