Archibald Vivian Hill was born in Bristol on 26 September 1886. Better known as A. V. Hill, he became a British physiologist whose experiments helped establish a more precise understanding of how muscles work.

Hill entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a mathematics student before moving into physiology. His mathematical training became central to his research. He developed sensitive methods to measure the small amounts of heat produced by contracting muscles. He studied the relationship between heat production, energy use and mechanical work.

In 1922, Hill shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with the German physiologist Otto Meyerhof. He received his share of the prize for his discoveries on heat production in muscle.

Hill became professor of physiology at Manchester before moving to University College London in 1923. His research continued beyond the work recognised by the Nobel Prize and included studies of muscular exercise and oxygen consumption.

His combination of mathematical analysis and experimental physiology helped develop biophysics and influenced later research in exercise physiology.