Look Who it Was Random video

John Maynard Smith - Announcing my career plans over Sunday lunch (8/102)

2,452 views · Published 22 March 2017 · 2:54 · Indexed 16 October 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Science & Technology

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To hear more of John Maynard Smith’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b0Nm_L3TKg&list=PLVV0r6CmEsFzJSvAc4MBuUP_GrjO1lLHp

The late British biologist John Maynard Smith (1920-2004) is famous for applying game theory to the study of natural selection. In 1973 Maynard Smith formalised a central concept in game theory called the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS). His ideas, presented in books such as 'Evolution and the Theory of Games', were enormously influential and led to a more rigorous scientific analysis and understanding of interactions between living things. [Listener: Richard Dawkins; date recorded: 1997]

TRANSCRIPT: I took engineering at Cambridge. It... I went up in 1938 to Cambridge. Engineering was a bit of an accident. This is a sort of anecdote about how it came about, which is, sort of, entertaining in a way, I suppose. My grandfather was the head of a successful stockbroking company in the City and making quite a lot of money, and he had three daughters, none of whom could become stockbrokers, I mean in those days you had to be a male to be a stockbroker. And then he had this numerate grandson whom he supposed was going to join the firm and become very, very rich. And I can remember at the age - I think I must have been 16 or so - realising that whatever else I became it wasn't going to be a stockbroker. You've got to want to make money, you've got to be interested in money, and as far as I'm concerned, so long as you've got it, it's not interesting. I can remember, there was a big Sunday lunch, my grandfather at the head of the table and the rest of the family sitting around. And I remember foolishly announcing, at Sunday lunch, one Sunday, that I'd decided not to become a stockbroker. I should have been prepared. My grandfather was a nice old boy, I mean, he was a sweet guy. He said, 'Oh, well, boy, oh, well, what are you going to do then? Eh? What are you going to do?' And I hadn't thought about this, you understand, it never occurred to me to wonder. But I... the week before, at school, I'd been to a lecture by a chap, an engineer, who'd been in charge of the erection of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Very exciting, he said they'd built it from both sides, and it has what engineers call a male and female fitting, and they go, plunk, like that, when they meet, and so on. And this was very exciting, so I said, 'I'm going to be an engineer.' Of course, what else could I... I had to say something.  And once you'd said something with my grandfather, you couldn't sort of shilly-shally and back down. And in any case, I had no idea you could earn your living being a biologist, it had simply never occurred to me as an option. I mean, Darwin hadn't earned his living as a biologist. I didn't know it was a profession you could pursue. So I said I was going to be an engineer, and then, I went to Cambridge to start engineering. I think, in normal times, I might have realised, when I got there, that perhaps something else was better, for me. But the war broke out.

[RD] The war broke out while you were in Cambridge.

Yes, the war broke out at the end of my first year.

[RD] Did that cut short the length of the degree course?

No, no, it was still a three year degree course, but it was very clear, if you were taking an engineering degree, you went on and finished it. And so I... I completed an engineering degree and then I went and designed aeroplanes between, what,  '41 and '47 or so.

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