Putting Maths into Biology - D鈥橝rcy Thompson
100 years ago D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson had a mission to apply physics to biology showing how nature's shapes, of flowers, shells and honeycombs, are dictated by mathematical rules
100 years ago D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson published On Growth and Form, a book with a mission to put maths into biology. He showed how the shapes, forms and growth processes we see in the living world aren鈥檛 some arbitrary result of evolution鈥檚 blind searching, but are dictated by mathematical rules. A flower, a honeycomb, a dragonfly鈥檚 wing: it鈥檚 not sheer chance that these look the way they do. But can these processes be explained by physics? D'Arcy Thompson loved nature鈥檚 shapes and influenced a whole new field of systems biology, architects, designers and artists, including Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.
Presenter: Philip Ball
Producer: Erika Wright
Picture: Corn Shell, Credit: LuisPortugal
Space
The eclipses, spacecraft and astronauts changing our view of the Universe
The Curious Cases of Rutherford and Fry
A pair of scientific sleuths answer your perplexing questions. Ask them anything!
Podcast
-
![]()
Discovery
Explorations in the world of science.
