science

Pat Hall

Pat Hall is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Pat Hall rather than just read about it. In short: Beryl Patricia Hall, née Woodhouse (13 June 1917 – 26 August 2010) was a British ornithologist, associated with the Natural History Museum. She is best known for her work on African birds.

Key takeaways

Pat Hall belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Pat Hall to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Pat Hall from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Beryl Patricia Hall, née Woodhouse (13 June 1917 – 26 August 2010) was a British ornithologist, associated with the Natural History Museum. She is best known for her work on African birds. She also wrote a book of whimsical poems with Derek Goodwin called the Bird Room Ballads (1969).

Life Pat grew up in Epsom, Surrey, born in an upper-middle-class family. Her ambition was to study mathematics at Cambridge but she failed to pursue it due to opposition from her parents. Forced to spend several years at home, she took to watching birds and then decided to sign up for the Women's Legion in 1939. Her work involved teaching ambulance driving and precautions during Air Raids. She got engaged to John Hall, a lieutenant in the army who was posted in the Middle East. She was initially posted to South Africa and she transferred to Egypt in March 1941 allowing her to marry John. After the war she returned to the UK and in 1947, following a failed marriage, she took up a position as a scientific associate at the bird room of the Natural History Museum. She obtained the job after meeting Sir Norman Kinnear who was a friend of her cousin Alfred Hughes. She then joined an expedition to southern and south-western Africa in 1949 along with James Macdonald and Colonel F. O. Cave. Working for half a year, they collected 1300 specimens of nearly 200 species of bird. She went on several self-funded expeditions in 1953 to northern Bechuanaland and another to Angola in 1957. She led the Harold Hall expedition to Australia based on her experience in arid zones in 1965. She worked on a number of African bird groups including the francolins. Her major work was An Atlas of Speciation in African Passerine Birds (1970) in collaboration with R.E. Moreau. She also wrote two books based on her war years in Africa What a Way to Win a War (1978) and A Hawk from a Handsaw (1993). Along with Derek Goodwin, she also wrote a series of whimsical poems Bird Room Ballads which were based on their activities in the bird section of the British Museum. Pat was a member of the Committee of the British Ornithologists’ Club from 1955 to 1964 and an Assistant Editor of the Ibis from 1971 to 1973. In 1973, she gave the Witherby Memorial Lecture on the subject of 'Speciation and specialisation'. She received the Gill Memorial Medal and the Stamford Raffles Award in 1971 as well as a BOU medal in 1973. She was invited to preside over the 4th Pan African Ornithological Congress in 1976. A species named by Russian-born ornithologist Alexandre Prigogine (1913–1991) after her as "Hall's greenbul" (Eurillas hallae) is now considered to be a melanistic specimen of little greenbul.

References

Illustrations

Pat Hall: Hall in Rhodesia, 1957 photographed by Alexander Wetmore — Hall in Rhodesia, 1957 photographed by Alexander Wetmore

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Pat Hall

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Pat Hall claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Pat Hall before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Pat Hall ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Pat Hall

In research: Pat Hall appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Pat Hall in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Pat Hall is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1917 births, 2010 deaths, 20th-century British women scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Pat Hall outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Pat Hall in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Pat Hall means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Pat Hall out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pat Hall in simple terms?

Beryl Patricia Hall, née Woodhouse (13 June 1917 – 26 August 2010) was a British ornithologist, associated with the Natural History Museum. She is best known for her work on African birds.

Why does Pat Hall matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Pat Hall?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Pat Hall.