astronomy

Peter Wildy

Peter Wildy is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Peter Wildy rather than just read about it. In short: Norman Peter Leete Wildy (31 March 1920 – 10 March 1987) was a 20th-century British virologist who was an expert on the herpes simplex virus. Education and personal life Wildy was born in Tunbridge Wells in Kent on 31 March 1920, the son of Eric Lawrence Wildy (1890–1973) an electrical engineer, and his wife, Gwendolen Leete (1890–1982).

Key takeaways

Peter Wildy belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Peter Wildy to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Peter Wildy from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Norman Peter Leete Wildy (31 March 1920 – 10 March 1987) was a 20th-century British virologist who was an expert on the herpes simplex virus.

Education and personal life Wildy was born in Tunbridge Wells in Kent on 31 March 1920, the son of Eric Lawrence Wildy (1890–1973) an electrical engineer, and his wife, Gwendolen Leete (1890–1982). He was educated at Eastbourne College. He studied medicine at the University of Cambridge, graduating MB BChir, and completed his medical training at St Thomas Hospital, London. In 1945, he married Joan Audrey Kenion; they had a son and two daughters. He was called up and did his National Service as a medical officer with the Kings West African Rifles, serving in Nigeria, India and Egypt. On his return, Wildy worked as a house officer at Greenbank Hospital, Plymouth. Housing was in short supply, so he bought Happy Medium, a retired RAF air-sea rescue launch, which was moored initially on the Cornish side of the Tamar. When he obtained a fellowship at St Thomas's Hospital in London, he sailed the Happy Medium to the more convenient location of Shoreham-by-Sea, near Brighton. In the early 1950s, he achieved a two-year Exchange Fellowship to the University of Melbourne, Australia. Wildy could play the flute and piccolo, kept Black Welsh Mountain Sheep, and was able to spin and dye wool. He was also a competent carpenter – he built his own spinning wheel – and capable of other practical activities such as re-roofing a barn and re-building rooms in his house. He died of lung cancer on 10 March 1987 at Cotton Hall in Kedington in Suffolk.

Scientific career Wildy obtained a research post at the Research Laboratory at St Thomas's Hospital in London, working as a bacteriologist. He was appointed to a lectureship in 1952 and senior lectureship in 1957. During this time, he became interested in virology and managed to spend time working with Sir MacFarlane Burnet at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, Australia. It was there that he started work on herpes. He subsequently was at the Department of Pathology at University of Cambridge, where he worked on herpes simplex virus and met Michael Stoker, who would have a significant impact on his career. During his brief time at the University of Cambridge, he worked with Sydney Brenner and Bob Horne, a leading electron microscopist, to use negative staining to see details of viral structure for the first time. This led him into viral classification, an important area of his work for the rest of his life. Proposals for viral classification that he made with collaborators became the basis for an international system. He was subsequently the first chair of the International Committee for the Taxonomy of Viruses. By 1959, Wildy was brought to the new Medical Research Council (Experimental Virology Unit) in Glasgow by Michael Stoker, its founding director. Wildy was the assistant director. In 1962, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; his proposers were Guido Pontecorvo, Michael Stoker, Sir William Weipers and Sir Michael Swann. From 1963 to 1975, he was professor of virology and bacteriology at the University of Birmingham, introducing a specialised MSc degree programme in virology. During this time, he was also involved in the foundation of the Journal of General Virology, which began publication in 1967, and was the journal's first editor. He was also one of the four founders of the International Congress of Virology, first held in Helsinki in 1968. In 1975, he was appointed to the chair of pathology at the University of Cambridge, remaining there until 1987. During this time, part of his department moved to a site three miles away at Addenbrooke. He also became a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. He was president of the Society for General Microbiology from 1978 to 1981, and an honorary member from 1986. During his career, he was a member of many committees, serving on the board of the Public Health Laboratory Service, and as an adviser to the World Health Organization and the governing bodies of several research council institutes.

Publications What's in a Virus Name? (1966) Andrewes, C. ; Pereira, H. G. ; Wildy, P. Viruses of vertebrates (1978, 4th edition), Bailliere Tyndall, London Wildy P. Herpes: History and Classification. Kaplan A.S. (Ed.), The Herpesviruses, Academic Press, New York (1973), pp. 1–26.

Legacy The annual Peter Wildy Prize Lecture in microbiology education or communication is named after him. Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, awards an annual Wildy Student scholarship in virology.

Peter Wildy Prize Lecturers This Prize lecture was introduced in 2001 by the Microbiology Society for communication of microbiology in education and to the public. The following have been guest lecturers:

Lucy Thorne (2024) Iruka N Okeke (2023) Elisabeth Bik (2021) Laura Bowater (2019) Tansy Hammarton (2018) Wendy Barclay (2016) Simon Park (2015) Stephen Curry (2014) David Bhella (2013) Vincent Racaniello (2012) Anthony C. Hilton (2011) Sue Assinder (2010) Chris Smith (2008) R. E. Sockett (2006) Joanna Verran (2005) Nicholas Thomson (2004) R. A. Killington (2003) Alan J. Cann (2001)

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Peter Wildy

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Peter Wildy claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Peter Wildy before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Peter Wildy ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Peter Wildy

In research: Peter Wildy appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Peter Wildy in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Peter Wildy is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1920 births, 1987 deaths, Academics of the University of Cambridge, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Peter Wildy outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Peter Wildy in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Peter Wildy means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Peter Wildy out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Peter Wildy in simple terms?

Norman Peter Leete Wildy (31 March 1920 – 10 March 1987) was a 20th-century British virologist who was an expert on the herpes simplex virus. Education and personal life Wildy was born in Tunbridge Wells in Kent on 31 March 1920, the son of Eric Lawrence Wildy (1890–1973) an electrical engineer, an…

Why does Peter Wildy matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Peter Wildy?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Peter Wildy.