Institutions Keele University Spouse Valerie Wood | Name Donald MacKay | |
Born 9 August 1922 ( 1922-08-09 ) Alma mater St Andrews University
King's College London Died February 6, 1987, Newcastle-under-Lyme, United Kingdom Books Information, mechanism and meaning, Behind the eye Children Robert Sinclair MacKay, David J. C. MacKay Education Wick High School, University of London | ||
Donald MacCrimmon MacKay (9 August 1922 – 6 February 1987) was a British physicist, and professor at the Department of Communication and Neuroscience at Keele University in Staffordshire, England, known for his contributions to information theory and the theory of brain organisation.
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Education
MacKay was educated at Wick High School and St Andrews University, and gained a PhD at King's College London. In the late 1940s MacKay was among the first members of the Ratio Club.
Personal life
Married to Valerie Wood, they had five children. His oldest son is Robert Sinclair MacKay, a professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick; his youngest son was David J. C. MacKay, a professor of physics at the University of Cambridge. He died within a year of giving the 1986 Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow.
Quotes
In our age, when people look for explanations, the tendency more and more is to conceive of any and every situation that we are trying to understand by analogy with a machine.
Selected publications
MacKay authored and authored several publications. A selection: