On Growth and Form

By D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, John Tyler Thompson, D'Arcy Wentworth;Bonner, Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson

Book Overview

D?Arcy Thompson?'s classic On Growth and Form looks at the way things grow and the shapes they take.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521093902
• ISBN13: 9780521093903
• Release Date: January 1961
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 359 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A misunderstood classic

A great book, to be read by all biophysicists-to-be. The modern follow-up to this book is Thom's Structural Stability, which shows that the logical conclusion of Thompson's ideas is both exciting and dubious. We probably can't just 'look' at stuff, we need to make (useful) predictions or the theory won't last. The interested reader should also pick up, if briefly, Mandelbrot's Fractal Geometry of Nature. Two notes of interest. 1) Morphology has indeed proven successful in proving physical theory: in the aggregation of dust particals, measuring the gross fractal dimension allows you to predict the type of noise involved in creating it. 2) The logarithmic spiral, together with the fibonnaci sequence and the golden ratio, show up quite surprisingly in synchronized chaotic loops. PS: to these I can add three more. 3) Shipman and Newell at the University of Arizona have shown that the Fibonnaci sequence in phylotaxis arises from buckling of pressurized skin (e.g. in a cactus or young sunflower) 4) Goldstein, also at UA, has shown that a broad variety of cave patterns (from ripples on the wall to bumps on stalagtites to wonderful crystaline snowflakes) all arise as a result of a single cause, the diffusion-reaction equation. 5) the late Winfree (also at UA!) has quite conclusively shown that heart beating and defribrillation are non-equilibrium sprial patterns similar to the BZ reaction. The whole business of form has been taken up by the Sante Fe institute, see Kauffman's At Home in the Universe. Anyone who likes this book would inevitably also love Wilson's Insect Societies. So, hopefully you understand that Thompson's book is not an island, but a visionary precursor of active research.

a quantitatiave approach to biology

This book is a classic, no two ways about it. It is really the first credible attempt to start taking a quantitative approach to biology, and despite the developments of the past century (molecular biology, etc), the problems raised in this book are just as pressing as they were when thompson wrote it. Anyone working in cell biology nowadays will immediately see applications of the ideas in this book, for example to organelle morphogenesis. The genius and erudition of thompson shine through on every page, making the book inspiring to read.

Illuminates the essence of understanding - Classic Overview

It's about so much more than the limits our minds create from standard reviews & categorizations. Shows how to organize your thinking to tackle something new. On the surface, it's a turn of the century survey & application of physical scientific knowledge. On a higher level it communicates how to effectively organize knowledge as a tool & pathway to inner understanding as only the CLASSICS can do. I was required to read it for my Brandeis Ph.D. in Biophysics, but have recommended it to home schoolers as the best single book to inform a teenager about physics, chemistry, biology, & practical thinking. The Latin roots of the title words, Form & Function, are utilized, rather than specialized contemporary jargon.