William Homan Thorpe

William ( Homan ) Thorpe (* April 1, 1902; † 7 April 1986) was a professor at Cambridge University and an eminent British zoologist and ethologist, including in the field of ornithology.

Together with Nikolaas Tinbergen, Patrick Bateson and Robert Hinde was William Thorpe after the Second World War instrumental in establishing the fledgling biological field of behavioral research in the UK.

He took in the 1940s, was the first European researchers the method of Schallspektrographie to analyze the fine structure of birdsong; in England there was at that time only one such device. Here, the sound signal, similar to the refraction of light using a prism, separated into individual frequency components, and displayed graphically. For example, many acoustic properties can be analyzed, eg, in the timing of changing pitches and intensities ( volumes ).

In 1948, Thorpe, along with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Gerard Baerends the journal Behaviour.

Works

  • Bird - song. The biology of vocal communication and expression in birds, University Press, Cambridge 1961 ( Cambridge monographs in experimental biology, Vol 12)
  • Dütting and antiphonal song in birds. Its extent and Significance, Brill, Leiden 1972, ISBN 90-04-03432-3 (behavior / Supplements, Vol 18)
  • Learning and Instinct in Animals, Methuen, London 1969, ISBN 0-416-57920-5
  • Science, Man and Morals. Based upon the Freemantle lectures, delivered in Balliol College, Oxford, Trinity Term 1963, Greenwood, Westport, Conn. 1976, ISBN 0-8371-8143-7
  • The origins and rise of ethology. The science of the natural behavior of animals, Heinemann, London, 1979, ISBN 0-435-62441-5
  • Zoologist
  • Behavioral scientists
  • Ornithologist
  • Member of the Royal Society
  • Briton
  • Born in 1902
  • Died in 1986
  • Man
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