Frederick Parker-Rhodes
Encyclopedia
Frederick Parker-Rhodes was an English linguist, plant pathologist, computer scientist
, mathematician
, mystic
, and mycologist.
on 21 March 1914. He was educated at Marlborough College
and Magdalene College, Cambridge
, from where he graduated in 1934 and subsequently received his PhD
. Being of independent means, he was able to pursue a variety of interests. He married author and political activist Damaris Parker-Rhodes and the couple earned a reputation as "bohemians
" and eccentrics. They were both members of the Communist Party
(Klaus Fuchs
stayed with them in Cambridge), but became disillusioned with communism and in 1948 joined the Society of Friends.
from where he published a series of research papers on the mechanism of fungicidal actions. His personal interest, however, was in the larger fungi, particularly agarics (mushrooms and toadstools), and he was a familiar figure at forays of the British Mycological Society
in the 1940s and 1950s. He even published a statistical survey of these forays. For nearly 30 years Parker-Rhodes tutored a course on fungi at the Flatford Mill
Field Studies Centre
in Suffolk
and, in 1950, published a popular book, Fungi, friends and foes. Subsequently, he produced papers studying the kinetics
of fairy rings and a series surveying the larger fungi of Skokholm
, an island off the western coast of Wales
. He described several taxa new to science, including the species now known as Trechispora clanculare (Park.-Rhodes) K.H. Larss. which he found in a puffin
burrow.
by Michael Halliday
at Cambridge. Parker-Rhodes was also a mathematician
, with a particular interest in statistics. Both these areas of expertise were of use to him when he joined the Cambridge Language Research Unit, an independent research centre established in 1955 by Margaret Masterman
. The unit was said to house "an extraordinary collection of eccentrics" engaged in research on language and computing, including information retrieval
. Parker-Rhodes' colleagues at CLRU included Roger Needham
, Karen Spärck Jones
, Ted Bastin
, Stuart Linney, and Yorick Wilks
.
Parker-Rhodes was "an original thinker in information retrieval
, quantum mechanics
and computational linguistics
." He is mainly remembered for his contribution to combinatorial physics, based on his elucidation of "combinatorial hierarchy
", a mathematical structure
of bit-strings
generated by an algorithm
based on discrimination (exclusive-or between bits). He published some of his ideas in this field in the book The Theory of Indistinguishables (1981). Parker-Rhodes also co-authored papers with Needham on the "theory of clumps" in relation to information retrieval
and computational linguistics
. He wrote a book on language, Inferential Semantics, published in 1978.
He was a member of the Alternative Natural Philosophy Association, a group of physicists and mathematicians who met up in Cambridge in the 1960s and created a semi-formal association in 1978. Other key members included H. Pierre Noyes
, Ted Bastin
, and Clive W. Kilmister
. The association sponsored a series of Parker-Rhodes memorial lectures in the 1990s.
His Times obituarist, Ted Bastin, says of Parker-Rhodes' personality and scientific contribution: "One must say, in sum, that Parker-Rhodes leaves us with an enigma - a situation to which he brought his characteristic gentle and slightly amused acquiescence.".
with mathematics. He had previously published a pamphlet, Wholesight: The Spirit Quest (1978), that explored mythical tales and parables in an attempt to bring science and religion together. He also produced a long poem, The Myth of the Rock, of a spiritual nature. His daughter, Oriole Parker-Rhodes, has electronically published some of the stories he told to his children. The library of the Society of Friends in London holds a typescript "The wheel of creation : an essay in wholesight, towards a coherent model of the place of mankind in the cosmos"
Computer scientist
A computer scientist is a scientist who has acquired knowledge of computer science, the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their application in computer systems....
, mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
, mystic
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
, and mycologist.
Background & education
Arthur Frederick Parker-Rhodes was born in Newington, YorkshireYorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
on 21 March 1914. He was educated at Marlborough College
Marlborough College
Marlborough College is a British co-educational independent school for day and boarding pupils, located in Marlborough, Wiltshire.Founded in 1843 for the education of the sons of Church of England clergy, the school now accepts both boys and girls of all beliefs. Currently there are just over 800...
and Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary Magdalene...
, from where he graduated in 1934 and subsequently received his PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
. Being of independent means, he was able to pursue a variety of interests. He married author and political activist Damaris Parker-Rhodes and the couple earned a reputation as "bohemians
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
" and eccentrics. They were both members of the Communist Party
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
(Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who in 1950 was convicted of supplying information from the American, British and Canadian atomic bomb research to the USSR during and shortly after World War II...
stayed with them in Cambridge), but became disillusioned with communism and in 1948 joined the Society of Friends.
Plant pathology and mycology
During the Second World War, Parker-Rhodes worked as a plant pathologist at Long Ashton Research StationLong Ashton Research Station
Long Ashton Research Station was an agricultural and horticultural government research centre in the village of Long Ashton near Bristol, UK...
from where he published a series of research papers on the mechanism of fungicidal actions. His personal interest, however, was in the larger fungi, particularly agarics (mushrooms and toadstools), and he was a familiar figure at forays of the British Mycological Society
British Mycological Society
The British Mycological Society is a learned society established in 1896 to promote the study of fungi.-Formation:The Society was formed based on the efforts of two local societies, the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club of Hereford and the Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union. The curator of the Hereford...
in the 1940s and 1950s. He even published a statistical survey of these forays. For nearly 30 years Parker-Rhodes tutored a course on fungi at the Flatford Mill
Flatford Mill
Flatford Mill is a Grade I listed 18th century watermill built in 1733 in Flatford, East Bergholt, Suffolk, England. Attached to the mill is a 17th century miller's cottage which is also Grade I listed....
Field Studies Centre
Field Studies Council
The Field Studies Council is an educational charity based in the UK. It opened its first Field Centre in 1947 at Flatford Mill, and now operates 17 Field Centres in various locations in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland offering both residential and non-residential field courses...
in Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
and, in 1950, published a popular book, Fungi, friends and foes. Subsequently, he produced papers studying the kinetics
Kinetics (physics)
In physics and engineering, kinetics is a term for the branch of classical mechanics that is concerned with the relationship between the motion of bodies and its causes, namely forces and torques...
of fairy rings and a series surveying the larger fungi of Skokholm
Skokholm
Skokholm is an uninhabited island off the coast of south west Pembrokeshire in Wales, lying south of the neighbouring island of Skomer. The whole island is a Site of Special Scientific Interest as is Skomer. The surrounding waters are a marine reserve, all part of the Pembrokeshire Coast National...
, an island off the western coast of Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. He described several taxa new to science, including the species now known as Trechispora clanculare (Park.-Rhodes) K.H. Larss. which he found in a puffin
Puffin
Puffins are any of three small species of auk in the bird genus Fratercula with a brightly coloured beak during the breeding season. These are pelagic seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water. They breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands, nesting in crevices among...
burrow.
Mathematical linguistics and computer science
Parker-Rhodes was an accomplished linguist and mastered at least 23 languages, claiming that they became "easier after the first half-dozen". He was introduced to Chinese and formal linguistic syntaxSyntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
by Michael Halliday
Michael Halliday
Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday is a British linguist who developed an internationally influential model of language, the systemic functional linguistic model. His grammatical descriptions go by the name of systemic functional grammar .-Biography:Halliday was born and raised in England...
at Cambridge. Parker-Rhodes was also a mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
, with a particular interest in statistics. Both these areas of expertise were of use to him when he joined the Cambridge Language Research Unit, an independent research centre established in 1955 by Margaret Masterman
Margaret Masterman
Margaret Masterman was a British linguist and philosopher, most known for her pioneering work in the field of computational linguistics and especially machine translation.- Biography :...
. The unit was said to house "an extraordinary collection of eccentrics" engaged in research on language and computing, including information retrieval
Information retrieval
Information retrieval is the area of study concerned with searching for documents, for information within documents, and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching structured storage, relational databases, and the World Wide Web...
. Parker-Rhodes' colleagues at CLRU included Roger Needham
Roger Needham
Roger Michael Needham, CBE, FRS, FREng was a British computer scientist.-Early life:He attended Doncaster Grammar School for Boys in Doncaster ....
, Karen Spärck Jones
Karen Spärck Jones
Karen Spärck Jones FBA was a British computer scientist.Karen Spärck Jones was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England. Her father was Owen Jones, a lecturer in chemistry, and her mother was Ida Spärck, a Norwegian who moved to Britain during World War II...
, Ted Bastin
Ted Bastin
Ted Bastin was a physicist and mathematician who held doctorate degrees in both physics and mathematics from Kings College, Cambridge University, to which he won an Isaac Newton studentship...
, Stuart Linney, and Yorick Wilks
Yorick Wilks
Yorick Wilks FBCS is a British Computer Scientist who is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Sheffield, a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, and a Senior Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition.__FORCETOC__- Biography :Wilks...
.
Parker-Rhodes was "an original thinker in information retrieval
Information retrieval
Information retrieval is the area of study concerned with searching for documents, for information within documents, and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching structured storage, relational databases, and the World Wide Web...
, quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
and computational linguistics
Computational linguistics
Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the statistical or rule-based modeling of natural language from a computational perspective....
." He is mainly remembered for his contribution to combinatorial physics, based on his elucidation of "combinatorial hierarchy
Combinatorial hierarchy
Combinatorial hierarchy is a mathematical structure of bit-strings generated by an algorithm based on discrimination . It was originally discovered by A.F. Parker-Rhodes in the 1960s, and is interesting because of physical interpretations that relate it to quantum mechanics...
", a mathematical structure
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
of bit-strings
Bit-string physics
Bit-string physics is an emerging body of theory which considers the universe to be a process of operations on strings of bits. Bit-string physics is often associated with A.F. Parker-Rhodes' combinatorial hierarchy, which is notable for its relationship with the electromagnetic and gravitational...
generated by an algorithm
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
based on discrimination (exclusive-or between bits). He published some of his ideas in this field in the book The Theory of Indistinguishables (1981). Parker-Rhodes also co-authored papers with Needham on the "theory of clumps" in relation to information retrieval
Information retrieval
Information retrieval is the area of study concerned with searching for documents, for information within documents, and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching structured storage, relational databases, and the World Wide Web...
and computational linguistics
Computational linguistics
Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the statistical or rule-based modeling of natural language from a computational perspective....
. He wrote a book on language, Inferential Semantics, published in 1978.
He was a member of the Alternative Natural Philosophy Association, a group of physicists and mathematicians who met up in Cambridge in the 1960s and created a semi-formal association in 1978. Other key members included H. Pierre Noyes
H. Pierre Noyes
H. Pierre Noyes is an American nuclear physicist. He has been a member of the faculty at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University since 1962...
, Ted Bastin
Ted Bastin
Ted Bastin was a physicist and mathematician who held doctorate degrees in both physics and mathematics from Kings College, Cambridge University, to which he won an Isaac Newton studentship...
, and Clive W. Kilmister
Clive W. Kilmister
Clive W. Kilmister was a British applied mathematician who specialized in the mathematical foundations of physics, especially quantum mechanics and relativity. He was one of the discoverers of the combinatorial hierarchy, along with A. F. Parker-Rhodes and E. W. Bastin...
. The association sponsored a series of Parker-Rhodes memorial lectures in the 1990s.
His Times obituarist, Ted Bastin, says of Parker-Rhodes' personality and scientific contribution: "One must say, in sum, that Parker-Rhodes leaves us with an enigma - a situation to which he brought his characteristic gentle and slightly amused acquiescence.".
Spiritual and other writings
At the time of his death, Parker-Rhodes had been working on a book, The Inevitable Universe, that combined elements of metaphysicsMetaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
with mathematics. He had previously published a pamphlet, Wholesight: The Spirit Quest (1978), that explored mythical tales and parables in an attempt to bring science and religion together. He also produced a long poem, The Myth of the Rock, of a spiritual nature. His daughter, Oriole Parker-Rhodes, has electronically published some of the stories he told to his children. The library of the Society of Friends in London holds a typescript "The wheel of creation : an essay in wholesight, towards a coherent model of the place of mankind in the cosmos"
Selected scientific publications
- Parker-Rhodes, A.F. (1949). "The Basidiomycetes of Skokholm Island. II. Genetical implications of spores measurement in two agarics". New Phytologist 48 (2): 382–389.
- ________________. (1950). Fungi-friends and Foes. 140 pp. UK, London.
- ________________. (1950). "The Basidiomycetes of Skokholm Island. III. Genetic isolation in Panaeolus papilionaceous". New Phytologist 49: 328–334.
- ________________. (1950). "The Basidiomycetes of Skokholm Island. IV. A case of hybridization in Psilocybe (Deconica)". New Phytologist 49 (3): 335–343.
- ________________. (1951). "The Basidiomycetes of Skokholm Island. V. An elementary theory of anemophilous dissemination". New Phytologist 50 (1): 84–97.
- ________________. (1951). "The Basidiomycetes of Skokholm Island. VII. Some floristic and ecological calculations". New Phytologist 50 (2): 227–243.
- ________________. (1951). "The Basidiomycetes of Skokholm Island. VI. Observations on certain uncommon species and varieties". Transactions of the British Mycological Society 34 (3): 360–367.
- ________________. (1952). "The Basidiomycetes of Skokholm Island. VIII. Taxonomic distributions". (PDF) New Phytologist 51 (2): 216–228.
- ________________. (1953). "The Basidiomycetes of Skokholm Island. IX. Response to meteorological conditions". New Phytologist 52 (1): 14–21.
- ________________. (1953). "The Basidiomycetes of Thetford Chase. I. Correlation with age of plantation". New Phytologist 52 (1): 65–70.
- ________________. (1953). "The Basidiomycetes of Skokholm Island. X. Population densities". (PDF) New Phytologist 52 (3): 273–291.
- ________________. (1954). "The Basidiomycetes of Skokholm Island. XI. Intramycelial variation in Hygrocybe turunda var. lepida". (PDF) New Phytologist 53 (1): 92–98.
- ________________. (1954). "Deme structure in higher fungi: Mycena galopus". Transactions of the British Mycological Society 37 (3): 314–320.
- ________________. (1954). "The Basidiomycetes of Skokholm Island. I. Annotated species list". Transactions of the British Mycological Society 37 (4): 324–342.
- ________________. (1955). "The Basidiomycetes of Skokholm Island. XII. Correlation with the chief plant associations". New Phytologist 54 (2): 259–276.
- ________________. (1955). "Some typical communities of Basidiomycetes". Transactions of the British Mycological Society 38 (2): 173.
- ________________. (1955). "Statistical aspects of fungus forays". Transactions of the British Mycological Society 38 (3): 283–290.
- ________________. (1955). "The Basidiomycetes of Skokholm Island". XIII. Echinotrema clanculare gen. et sp. nov." Transactions of the British Mycological Society 38 (4): 366–368.
- ________________. (1956). "Distribution of fungi in a small wood". (PDF) Annals of Botany London, N.S. 20 (78): 251–264.
- ________________. (1979). Handbook with Keys for the Identification of the Tachycarpic Hymenomycetidae, Namely All the Toadstools Hitherto Found in the British Isles. 234 pp. UK; A.F. Parker-Rhodes.