In 1926 he entered the University of Edinburgh to study mathematics and natural philosophy, and gained his MA with first-class honours in 1930.
He was also awarded a scholarship that took him to Emmanuel College, Cambridge where he read for the Maths Tripos Part II, obtaining his MA in 1932.
At the end of the war the college's facilities were needed again, and so TRE moved elsewhere in Malvern, to HMS Duke, later becoming the Royal Radar Establishment.
[4] In 1961 Smith was invited to become Professor of Physics at the University of Sheffield, but it wasn't a world he felt comfortable in,[3] and he started exploring the idea of going to MIT.
Before he retired from this post in 1974 he oversaw major expansions in building programmes, the quality and quantity of students and staff, degrees awarded, papers published, new research grants and 12 new Chairs.