Involved in the development of Whirlwind, the first all-digital computer, Brown also originated many of the concepts behind automatic-feedback control systems and the numerical control of machine tools. He was born in 1907 in Australia and 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. In 1929, he entered MIT as a junior and graduated with a degree in electrical engineering in 1931.
Continuing his studies at the Institute, Brown earned a master's degree in 1934. From 1931, he assisted Harold Hazen in constructing an electro-optical analog computer based on Norbert Wiener's "Cinema Integraph" concept. In 1933, his servomechanisms were displayed at the Century of Progress World Fair. In 1938, he received his Ph.D. for the study and construction of the practical "Cinema Integraph," under the tutelage of Hazen.
With his former student Donald P. Campbell, Brown wrote Principles of Servomechanisms in 1948, which is still a standard reference in the field. He was promoted to full professor in 1946 and served as chairman of the MIT faculty from 1951 to 1952. In 1952, he became chairman of the electrical engineering department, and from 1959 to 1968, he served as dean of the school of engineering.
In 1973, Brown received the distinction of Institute Professor, MIT's highest academic honor. He retired in 1974 as an emeritus professor of electrical engineering and Institute Professor Emeritus, after which he and his wife moved to Arizona, where he became involved with introducing computers and the ideas of system dynamics into classrooms. In 1985, the building on MIT's campus housing the Microsystems Technology Laboratories was named the Gordon Stanley Brown Building (Building 39).
