D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860–1948)

According to the biographical information, D'Arcy Thompson was offered his professorship in either classics, biology or maths, being equally advanced in all three fields. This book reflects that breadth; it is superbly written, with points occasionally illustrated by reference to the stories of antiquity, and provides a sound mathematical basis for the comparisons of natural forms which form the body of the work. An absolute pleasure to read; the only criticism might be that the mathematics doesn't go far enough (though Thompson cannot be blamed for not anticipating those who came after him). Recommended if you've ever wondered about why things are the shapes they are.… (mehr)

On Growth and Form, in its unabridged and updated second edition, is around one thousand one hundred pages long and comes in two volumes. As such, it is a long and somewhat laborious read, though the unabridged version, (which I have not read), would presumably be more accessible to those with less patience.
I can say without hesitating that a good part of the book is boring, specifically the parts full of statistics and concerning rate of growth. But, what would not be immediately obvious to a discerning reader of science, were he to pick this book up and flick through it in order to determine whether or not the contents were of interest, is that underneath all the technical and mathematical writing are hiding observations and conclusions that are not only interesting to the naturalist, or biologist, but would seem remarkable and inspiring to anyone with a sense of curiosity about the natural world, were he to wade far enough into this dense jungle of ancient and modern, obscure and well known, scientific references, illustrations, and quotations, that cover up the most compelling revelations. An example would be how, by thorough presentation of evidence, he demonstrates how the hexagonally arranged honeycomb of the bee comes about not by any design of the bee, but by natural laws of the universe, mathematically determined, being the same laws that cause the hexagonal arrangement of the rock pillars of the Giants Causeway, the minute hexagonal crystals in rock itself, and the hexagonal nature of soap bubbles formed in a dish, alongside that the hexagonal shape of the faces of the skeleton of the microscopic sea creature, and the angles formed between the dividing cells in the embryonic mass. This is but one example, and the thought provoking qualities of this book, due to the authors insight into the unity of what are at first seemingly unrelated phenomena, are enough to make it worth the effort of getting into. The scope of the learning of the author is reassuring, and he references not only contemporary plant biologist, physicists, and mathematicians, but also practically every scientific luminary from Aristotle, to Pythagoras, to Plato, to the incidentally scientifically illustrative author of fiction.
This is not only an illuminating read concerning natural phenomena existing in the realm of biology, but it is a worthy example of ingenious cross-disciplinary scientific thought. Never before, or since, as far as I am aware, have mathematics and physics been so productively used to clear away the mysteries, and reduce to clarity so diverse a range of biological puzzles.
One thing that may concern the potential reader is the age of this book, and whether or not this may impact the relevance and accuracy of the content. Despite being first published in 1917, and updated in the forties, very little in this book is wrong. All that is lacking is a knowledge of molecular biology and genetics, a branch of biology almost non-existent when the book was first written, and irrelevant to most of the conclusions. The observations made here are mostly not things taught to the modern biologist in any stage of his education, but nevertheless remain things which would provide a fresh way of looking at things, a way which is almost always interesting, be it not always useful.
Certainly not a book for everyone, this should be worth at least skimming through to the best bits for the biologist and the mathematician.… (mehr)

This is a great classic and a masterpiece of out-of-the-box thinking. I like it because it puts mathematic and physics back into biology, which has been completely dominated by genetics for the last 50 years. The point of the book is that there are some mathematical/physical constraints on body forms in nature, that just have to be the way they are, without needing any input from genetic instructions. Since this book was published in 1917, it has lost nothing of its potency and beauty, but the message in it has been neglected for too long. As a result, the creationists have been able to exploit this and keep asking where is all the information to make a body? And how did it get into the genome? This book provides part of the answer, long before DNA was discovered: Some aspects of bodily form do not need to be encoded in DNA, they are already encoded in the laws of nature itself. DNA works in the context of an external physical world and mathematical constraints, which add additional information. Therefore the genome does not have to include all the information to make a living being. The same of course applies (not discussed in d'Arcy's book) to molecules themselves: How protein fold is not encoded in DNA. This is determined by physics. I think physicists and biologists need to work closer together. This book provides the clarion call, although it is almost 100 years old.… (mehr)