William Albert Hugh Rushton FRS (8 December 1901 – 21 June 1980) was professor of

Physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

. His main interest lay in

colour vision Color vision, a feature of visual perception, is an ability to perceive differences between light composed of different wavelengths (i.e., different spectral power distributions) independently of light intensity. Color perception is a part of ...

and his

Principle of Univariance The principle of univariance is how one can discriminate between wavelengths through comparison of multiple photoreceptors. The principle states that one and the same visual receptor cell can be excited by different combinations of wavelength and ...

is of seminal importance in the study of

perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...

Education

Rushton was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, and the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

. A student at Pembroke College, he later held a fellowship at Emmanuel before obtaining a fellowship at Trinity. He was a keen musician, playing violin and viola, and later bassoon; he also composed a few pieces, and had some instruction from Gustav Holst. In 1930 he married Marjorie Kendrick, an oboist; their house was accordingly called 'Shawms'.

Principle of Univariance

In his lecture "Pigments and signals in colour vision" he stated it thus: ''"The output of a receptor depends upon its quantum catch, but not upon what quanta are caught."'' This means that one and the same visual receptor cell can be excited by different combinations of wavelength and intensity, so that the brain can not know the colour of that point of the retinal picture.

Psychical research

Rushton held an interest in

parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near ...

. From 1969 to 1971 he was the President of the

Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to co ...

. He was known for suggesting natural explanations for alleged paranormal phenomena. He revealed how the device of Ted Serios known as a "gizmo" could have been utilized to produce fraudulent psychic photographs. He suggested that it was light that formed the photographs from a luminous picture placed in front of the camera lens hidden in the gizmo. Rushton successfully replicated the Serios phenomenon by holding a little reflecting prism that contained a microfilm picture against the camera lens.

Honours

*1931 Beit Memorial Fellowship *1948

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...

*1968 Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences *1969 Honorary

DSc DSC may refer to: Academia * Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) * District Selection Committee, an entrance exam in India * Doctor of Surgical Chiropody, superseded in the 1960s by Doctor of Podiatric Medicine Educational institutions * Dalton State Col ...

of Case Western Reserve University *1970 Royal Medal of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

References

External links

*''I Will Plant Me a Tree: an Illustrated History of Gresham's School'' by S.G.G. Benson and Dr Martin Crossley Evans (James & James, London, 2002) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rushton, W. A. H. 1901 births 1980 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge English physiologists Fellows of the Royal Society Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Parapsychologists People educated at Gresham's School Royal Medal winners