Robert McNeill Alexander

Robert McNeill Alexander
Born 7 July 1934
Alma mater University of Cambridge, University of Wales
Occupation zoologist
Employer University of Leeds
Awards Fellow of the Royal Society[*], Commander of the Order of the British Empire[*]

(Robert) McNeill Alexander, CBE, MA, PhD, DSc, FRS (born 7 July 1934, Lisburn, Northern Ireland) is a British Zoologist.

Biography

Professor Alexander was educated at the University of Cambridge (MA, PhD) and the University of Wales (DSc). After a Lectureship at the then University College of North Wales (now Bangor University) from 1958 to 1969, he was Professor of Zoology at the University of Leeds from 1969 until his retirement in 1999 when the title of Emeritus Professor was conferred upon him.[1]

Alexander was Secretary of the Zoological Society of London (1992-1999) which included supervising the management of London and Whipsnade Zoos. He was President of the Society for Experimental Biology (1995-1997), President of the International Society of Vertebrate Morphologists (1997-2001) and editor of the prestigious Proceedings of the Royal Society B (1998-2004).[2]

Alexander married Ann Elizabeth Coulton in 1961.[3]

Alexander has specialised in research on animal mechanics and apart from the books listed below, he has also published numerous research papers in this field since 1959. He is still an active research scientist and continues to publish papers regularly.

Dinosaur locomotion

One particular area of his research interest has been into the mechanics of Dinosaur motion.[4] He contributed greatly to the development of a formula used to calculate the speed of motion of dinosaurs, the so-called 'dinosaur speed calculator,' which is in fact mathematically derived from the Froude number:

"The key to deriving estimates of dinosaur gait and speed from trackways was provided by the zoologist R. McNeill Alexander (1976). From observations of modern animals he derived a general relationship between an animal's speed of locomotion (v) and its hip height (h) and its stride length (SL), which is

{v}=0.25.{g^{-0.5}}.{SL^{1.67}}.{h^{-1.17}}

Alexander also pointed out that this formula could be applied to dinosaur trackways since the stride length can be measured directly and the hip height could be estimated from the size of the foot print."[5]

Originally, Alexander stated: "I have now obtained a relationship between speed, stride length and body size from observations of living animals and applied this to dinosaurs to achieve estimates of their speeds. The estimated speeds are rather low—between 1.0 and 3.6 m s−1."[6]

But modifications to the original formula gave rise to revised estimates. And "Alexander (1996) argued that based on the bone dimensions of Tyrannosaurus it is unlikely they could have travelled at more than 8ms-1."[7] Several calculations using variants of the formula indicate that dinosaurs probably travelled at around 3 ms-1 with a top speed of 8 ms-1. This translates to a speed range of roughly 6-20 mph.

Honours & Awards

Publications

Books

Papers

(This is merely a small sample from over 250 papers)

Film & TV work

[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ R McNeill Alexander academic homepage at Leeds
  2. ↑ International Society of Biomechanics, Newsletter March 2011
  3. ↑ The International Who's Who 2004, Europa Publications
  4. ↑ The Pterosaur Database
  5. ↑ Dinosaur speed calculator, University of Sheffield
  6. ↑ Alexander, R. M. Estimates of speeds of Dinosaurs, Nature 261, pp.129-130 (1976)
  7. ↑ Dinosaur Gait and Estimates of Speeds, University of Bristol
  8. ↑ The Royal Society, List of Presidents & Fellows
  9. ↑ The University of Leeds, Reporter 455, September 2000
  10. ↑ R McNeill Alexander at Internet Movie Database

External links

Professional and academic associations
Preceded by
Barry Albert Cross		 Secretary of the
Zoological Society of London
1992–1999 		Succeeded by
Paul H. Harvey
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