Chalmers W. Sherwin

Chalmers W. Sherwin was an American physicist 1926-2007 (81 years). Studied at University of Chicago, MIT, Columbia University, and the University of Illinois. He earned a PhD. Worked at the U.S. Air Force and Aerospace Corporation.

During World War II, he helped the development of an advanced distant-warning system and airplane-mounted radar. As head of research at General Atomic, he oversaw the development of a carbon heart valve. He wrote two college physics texts and secured numerous patents. Around 1959 as a physicist at the University of Illinois, he suggested a computerised learning system and this would eventually become the PLATO system in 1960.