Torkel Weis-Fogh
Torkel Weis-Fogh (* 1922 in Aarhus ; † November 13, 1975 in Cambridge ) was a Danish zoologist and professor at the University of Cambridge .
Weis-Fogh, son of a bank clerk and accountant, studied in Copenhagen with the Nobel laureate and physiologist August Krogh (whose assistant he was from 1947), where he dealt with the desert grasshopper ( Schistocerca Gregaria ) as an experimental animal. He stayed at Krogh's former laboratory until it closed in 1953 (which he headed after Krogh's death in 1949) and then spent a year at the Institute of Neurophysiology in Copenhagen before going to Cambridge for four years on a Rockefeller Fellowship. In 1958 he became professor of zoophysiology in Copenhagen (a new chair created for him) before becoming professor of zoology and head of the faculty of zoology at Cambridge in 1966, which he remained until 1975.
With Krogh he was a pioneer in the study of insect flight and its physiological basis. He also dealt with the elastic properties and their microscopic basis of skin proteins such as resilin (which he discovered in insects) and elastin and cell mobility, for example of protozoa.
He did not lose his interest in insect flight until the end and in a work in 1973 he developed an aerodynamic theory of insect flight, which the mathematician and hydrodynamicist James Lighthill (with whom he worked) called the Weis-Fogh mechanism for generating lift.
He was seriously injured in a 1971 car accident in which his wife died. He fell into depression and committed suicide in 1975.
He kept in touch with Denmark and had a country house in Tibirke . In 1961 he held the Prather Lectures in Biology at Harvard University . In 1974 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
Fonts
- with Martin Jensen: Biology and Physics of Locust Flight I. Basic Principles in Insect Flight. A critical review. In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society . Series B: Biological Sciences. Vol. 239, No. 667, 1956, pp. 415-458, doi: 10.1098 / rstb.1956.0007 , (and other articles in the series).
- The Flight of Locusts. In: Scientific American . Vol. 194, No. 3, 1956, pp. 116-126, JSTOR 24943859 .
- Unusual Mechanisms for the Generation of Lift in Flying Animals. In: Scientific American. Vol. 233, No. 5, 1975, pp. 80-87, doi: 10.1038 / scientificamerican1175-80 .
- A rubber-like protein in insect cuticle. In: Journal of Experimental Biology . Vol. 37, 1960, pp. 889-907, ( digital version (PDF; 1.69 MB) ).
- Thermodynamic properties of resilin, a rubber-like protein. In: Journal of Molecular Biology . Vol. 3, No. 5, 1961, pp. 520-531, doi: 10.1016 / S0022-2836 (61) 80018-1 .
- Quick estimates of flight fitness in hovering animals, including novel mechanisms for lift production. In: Journal of Experimental Biology . Vol. 59, 1973, pp. 169-230, ( digital version (PDF; 3.5 MB) ).
Web links
References and comments
- ↑ August Krogh , Torkel Weis-Fogh: The Respiratory Exchange of the Desert Locust (Schistocerca Gregaria) before, During and After Flight. In: Journal of Experimental Biology. Vol. 28, 1952, pp. 344-357, ( digital version (PDF; 767 KB) ).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Weis-Fogh, Torkel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Danish zoologist and professor at the University of Cambridge |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1922 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Aarhus |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 13, 1975 |
| Place of death | Cambridge |