He graduated from the Workingman's College (now the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) at the age of 18 with diplomas in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering.
Since 1931 Brown assisted Harold Hazen in constructing an electro-optical analog computer based on Norbert Wiener's "Cinema Integraph" concept.
After the outbreak of World War Two, publication of Brown's research was suppressed for wartime secrecy concerns.
In 1973, Brown received the distinction of Institute Professor, MIT's highest academic honor.
He and his wife moved to Arizona, where he became involved with introducing computers and the ideas of system dynamics into classrooms.