You might call Ray Dolby an over-achiever. He began his career with Ampex Corporation in 1949, working on audio and instrumentation projects. There he played a major role in the invention of the world's first practical videotape recorder.

What makes this all the more impressive is that Dolby didn't receive his bachelor of science degree from Stanford University until years later. Shortly thereafter, he was awarded a Marshall Scholarship and a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship, which he used to study at Cambridge University in England.

In 1961, he earned his Ph.D. in physics while at Cambridge serving as a consultant to the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. He then took a two-year appointment as a United Nations advisor in India.

Upon his return in 1965, Dolby founded his own company dedicated to the development of new audio noise reduction techniques. Since then, consumers have purchased more than 630 million audio products licensed to use Dolby technologies.

More than 7,000 feature films have been released with Dolby soundtracks. They have been shown at the more than 43,000 movie theaters worldwide that have Dolby equipment to play them. There are more than 50 weekly television shows currently running in the United States that are encoded in Dolby Surround Sound.