B. V. Bowden, Baron Bowden
Bertram Vivian Bowden, Baron Bowden (; 18 January 1910 – 28 July 1989) was an English scientist and educationist, particularly associated with the development of UMIST as a successful university. Life Born, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, he attended Hasland Junior School as a child and graduated in natural sciences from Emmanuel College, Cambridge (1931), taking his Ph.D. in nuclear physics while working at Cavendish Laboratory under Ernest Rutherford. From 1934-1935 he was sponsored by ICI to undertake research at the University of Amsterdam. After a period in teaching, in 1940 he was conscripted to the Telecommunications Research Establishment to work on radar, including an improved system to distinguish between friend and foe. From 1943, he continued his work at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, establishing himself as an able and effective administrator. From the end of World War II to 1953 he held a series of jobs, including selling early computers manufactured by Ferranti. His prescient forecasts of the impact that the technology would have on daily life were published in his 1953 book Faster than Thought. In 1953, Bowden became principal of the Manchester College of Science and Technology, a vocational education college in Manchester. The post-war expansion in university education