Bob Young and his contributions to animal bioacoustics and underwater acoustics

Quintessential component and Past President of ASA, Robert W. Young was truly a scientist par excellence for all seasons. His professional accomplishments excelled in large measure with outstanding assistance of his talented wife, Evelyn. Whether noise, psychoacoustics, architecture, propagation, music, patents, underwater sound, animal bioacoustics, or other discipline(s), his trademark was always distinguished by elegant design and very proper presentation. Whenever new or experienced co-workers needed a bit of correction or retuning, Bob Young (known to many of us as ‘‘Uncle Fussy Ears’’) was the one to seek for sage guidance. All contemporary acoustics manuscripts from the Naval Electronics Laboratory (NEL), later Naval Ocean Systems Center (NOSC), had to pass his scrutiny. The wise chose to seek early comment from Bob Young or chance the possibility of endless editorial notations or internal memos, oftimes pages long. For example, one quickly learned never to describe a whale’s sound as ‘‘loud’’ in lieu of ‘‘high sound source level.’’ With a few examples of his pioneering studies on animal and underwater acoustics we’ll revisit some of Bob Young’s early landmark contributions and hear about a rare privilege of being so close to such authority, propriety and exactitude.