The passing of R McNeil Alexander

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Was just searching for some stuff on Froude numbers to try to help out my padawan when I came across McNeil Alexander's obituary- seems he died earlier this month.

The last Society conference I went to, I went to, to listen to only one lecture- his. I remember being blown away by his studies on the elastic behaviour of tendons, with videos of wallabies on treadmills and then over-hearing a colleague in the audience saying "what's this got to do with Podiatry?" Never-mind.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a wedding, one of the other guests there had been one of his PhD students (studying locomotion in fishes) and we were talking about "the Prof." Neither of us realised that he had passed away.

The man was a genius. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2016/04/03/robert-mcneill-alexander-zoologist---obituary/

 

That's very very sad news. I was fortunate to meet him at a conference at the old Nene College in 1986. He presented a paper on the "Elastic properties of the human foot".

 

This is indeed very sad news to have such a great man as R. McNeill Alexander pass away. I have a number of Alexander's books in my library at home. Every podiatrist interested in biomechanics should read his book Principles of Animal Locomotion. This masterful analysis of how animals locomote is truly one of my favorite biomechanics books of all time.

Thank you for your dedication and the immense knowledge you have given to us with your life's work, Dr. Alexander. You were a legend in your own time.