Renowned zoologist. Thompson was born in Edinburgh, the son of a Professor of Greek, and educated at the Edinburgh Academy, then Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1897, he became Professor of Biology, first at Dundee, and then at St. Andrews University. His best-known publication was his study On Growth and Form (1917), which established the field of biomathematics, but he published many other works on birds, fish and oceanography. Thompson developed a reputation as one of the greatest interdisciplinary thinkers of his time. He was knighted in 1937.
