I was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on 18 October, 1953. My birthday, coincidentally, was the same as my grandfather's.
I went through the usual years of school in Vancouver, first at Bayview Primary School, then at Kitsilano Secondary School, graduating in 1971.
After school, I then studied physics and astronomy at the University of British Columbia, graduating in 1975. I stayed on for an MSc at UBC, and then moved to the University of Toronto to do a PhD in physics, which I obtained in 1981. After a couple of years as a post-doc in Toronto, I moved to Monifieth, a suburb of Dundee, Scotland in 1984, where I've been ever since.
I was a lecturer in mathematics and then computing at the University of Dundee from May 1984 until December 2008.
Over the years, I've written a few books, which I list here. I suspect most of them are out of date and/or out of print by now.
I'm in the process of writing a series of tutorials on programming, which you can view here.
I have also returned to my first love, physics, and am trying to relearn a lot of what I knew back in the 1970s and 1980s. I run the PhysicsPages web site where I post articles on various aspects of physics.
I have maintained a weather station in Monifieth, Scotland since July 2003. Current readings and past data archives can be found on the weather station site