Ariel Davis was born 14 February 1912 to Rual D. and Mary Kitchen Davis in Provo, Utah. He graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Physics. He married Dorothy Jean Harding on 27 March 1941 in the Salt Lake Temple. He joined the US Navy in January 1944 and served in the Pacific until December 1945. He opened his own company, Ariel Davis Manufacturing Company, which manufactured his lighting inventions and sold stage and industrial lights throughout the US and Canada. He held over fifty US Patents. He used the Clyde Building on BYU campus to learn to use computers and try to attract engineering students to create inventions using computers. He died 6 February 1977 at home.