Ted Paige

Professor Edward George Sydney Paige FRS (18 July 1930 – 20 February 2004), known as Ted Paige, was a British physicist and engineer. His main areas of research were semiconductor devices to improve radar, including work on surface acoustic waves, and optical techniques using programmable phase plates.

Early life and education Paige was an only child born and raised in Northiam, Sussex, where he developed a lifelong interest in ornithology. Paige was raised in “a thatched cottage, reputedly of sixteenth-century vintage, in Northiam, a village on the border between Kent and East Sussex.” Paige's father, in keeping with family tradition, worked for the railway, serving the stationmaster at the town's railway station. The family did not have running water until Paige was five years old, and did not have electricity until some time later. His parents “were encouraging and supportive but…had little contact with the world of learning or with intellectual pursuits.” An only child, Paige “developed a passion for bird watching, which he sustained throughout his life. He also “suffered periodically from chest complaints,” and his mother later told him that the doctor had lowered his fees for the family to make treatment affordable. Paige described this as “the source of his subsequent socialist leanings.”

Career Given the choice of either pursuing a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Research Council in Canada or accepting a Civil Service Commission Junior Fellowship at a government-run research establishment of his choice in the UK, Paige chose the latter, ultimately choosing the Radar Research Establishment (RRE) in Malvern,

In the late 1950s he taught classes at Birmingham University and led seminars in the Physics Department of Oxford University. In the 1980s he developed an interest in optoelectronics, including programmable light modulators for sub-micron lithography. From 2000 until he died in 2004, Paige was a director of the Haemochromatosis Society, a group founded in 1990 to help with awareness and research into genetic haemochromatosis.

Honorary appointments In 1966, he was a visiting professor at the Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen; in 1986, a visiting professor at Stanford University.

Awards In 1978 he received the Institute of Physics' Duddell Medal and the Institute of Acoustics' Rayleigh Medal. In the same year he won the Gabor Medal from the Institute of Physics. In the 1980s he developed an interest in optoelectronics, including programmable light modulators for sub-micron lithography.

Works

Patents Maines James Dennis, Paige Edward George Sydney: Frequency sensitive detecting and measuring circuits based on the acoustic electric effect. National Research Development Corporation. May 2, 1972: US 3660756 Maines James Dennis, Paige Edward George Sydney: Application of acousto-electric oscillators. Secr Defence. Apr, 19 1972: GB 1271495-A David John Gunton, Edward George Sydney Paige: Directional coupler having interdigital comb electrodes, 31 May 1977: US 4027254 Edward George Sydney Paige: Surface acoustic wave devices, 17 August 1976: US 3975697 and US 3978437 With F. G. Marshall: Acoustic surface wave devices. 1974:GB 1372235 With F. G. Marshall: Acoustic surface wave device amplifiers. 1975:GB 1385055 With P. D. Bloch & M. E. Barnard: Inclined chirp transducer. 1983: GB 2145893