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On Growth and Form: The Complete Revised Edition |
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Author:
D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
By Dover Publications
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: $39.95
Our Price: $22.31
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Product Description
Classic of biology and modern science sets forth seminal "theory of transformation"—that one species evolves into another not by successive minor changes in individual body parts but by large-scale transformations involving the body as a whole. Rich literary style. Over 500 photographs and drawings. Index.
Amazon.com Review
First published in 1917, On Growth and Form was at once revolutionary and conservative. Scottish embryologist D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860-1948) grew up in the newly cast shadow of Darwinism, and he took issue with some of the orthodoxies of the day--not because they were necessarily wrong, he said, but because they violated the spirit of Occam's razor, in which simple explanations are preferable to complex ones. In the case of such subjects as the growth of eggs, skeletons, and crystals, Thompson cited mathematical authority: these were matters of "economy and transformation," and they could be explained by laws governing surface tension and the like. (He doubtless would have enjoyed the study of fractals, which came after his time.) In On Growth and Form, he examines such matters as the curve of frequency or bell curve (which explains variations in height among 10-year-old schoolboys, the florets of a daisy, the distribution of darts on a cork board, the thickness of stripes along a zebra's flanks, the shape of mountain ranges and sand dunes) and spirals (which turn up everywhere in nature you look: in the curve of a seashell, the swirl of water boiling in a saucepan, the sweep of faraway nebulae, the twist of a strand of DNA, the turns of the labyrinth in which the legendary Minotaur lived out its days). The result is an astonishingly varied book that repays skimming and close reading alike. English biologist Sir Peter Medawar called Thompson's tome "beyond comparison the finest work of literature in all the annals of science that have been recorded in the English tongue." --Gregory McNamee
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A classic book, unlike any other, 2008-09-03
Most biologists have heard of D'Arcy Thompson's famous book, and have seen his drawings that show how apparently different animals -- fish, for example -- can be transformed into one another by distorting the coordinate system. Sometimes a simple skewing or stretching will suffice, but in other cases more complicated transformations are needed. Few, however, have read the book, and few realize that the famous drawings come right at the end of a long and detailed argument in which D'Arcy Thompson establishes the importance of purely physical considerations in deciding the forms taken by organisms.
D'Arcy Thompson was not opposed to the idea of natural selection, and recognized that it was part of the explanation of evolution. However, he was writing at the beginning of the 20th century at a time when he felt that natural selection was regarded as the complete and only explanation of evolution, and he wanted to show that it wasn't as simple as that. In a modern book, Richard Dawkins's "The Ancestor's Tale", we can read that "Animal shapes are malleable like plasticine. A fish can change in evolutionary time to whatever unfishy shape is required for its way of life." This is the point of view that D'Arcy Thompson considered exaggerated, because he argued that there are many physical constraints that limit this infinite malleability (less, perhaps, for animals that live in the water than for land animals that must take account of gravity, but real nonetheless). He shows that many features of animals must and do obey the same rules as those followed by engineers in designing bridges.
D'Arcy Thompson's style is quite unlike any other -- "scholarly" would be an understatement -- and much of the book can be read for the pleasure of the language. Even at the time of writing (originally 1917) it must have been optimistic to think that scientist readers could cope with abundant quotations from other writers left untranslated from Greek, Latin, German or French. (In the unabridged 2nd edition that I once leafed through but have not read, I think there were some in Spanish and Italian, but I didn't find any of these in the abridged edition.) Most of the French quotations are quite important for the argument, and I suppose the same is probably true for the others, so a modern reader inevitably loses some of the sense. The most extreme example is a whole page devoted to a quotation from Buffon in support of the author's contention that the popular idea that honeybees are brilliant engineers is due to a failure to understand the purely physical constraints involved in constructing a honeycomb.
Some of the other reviewers have commented that in preparing this abridged edition John Tyler Bonner emasculated the original. Although I have some sympathy with this criticism I think it is too strong. For many readers the effect of reading the abridged edition will be to stimulate them to read the book in full -- as I certainly shall now do.
 How to ruin a classic book with an abridged edition , 2008-05-06
When I ordered the book, I didn't even realize the edition was abridged. The book arrived suspiciously smaller than I expected it, almost half size. I thought maybe my memory deceived me, but apparently no.
In the introduction of the editor, Mr. John Tyler Bonner, is so kind as to explain that he mistook a classic book on organism and form, for a scientific one. In order to make the book accessible to general public (who said it was not?) and to "correct" Mr. D'Arcy's writing, Mr. Bonner removed the "dangerous" chapters with "vague" (always according to him) arguments, and the "out-of-date" material, and finally to turned D'Arcy's book into his own.
What I want to clarify is that I am not giving two stars to Mr. D'Arcy's book, for this book I did not read. Instead I am giving 2 stars to Mr. Bonner, to Cambridge University Press, to Canto and to Amazon (for not noting this is an abridged piece of work) for destroying a classic.
REMINDER: THE BOOK IS ABRIDGED EDITION, and the editor not so great
is Amazon Editorial review correct?, 2008-02-25
I wonder if the Amazon editorial review is correct: it is stated that the book examines such matters as
"the thickness of stripes along a zebra's flanks, the shape of mountain ranges and sand dunes and spirals which turn up everywhere in nature you look: in the curve of a seashell, the swirl of water boiling in a saucepan, the sweep of faraway nebulae, the twist of a strand of DNA, the turns of the labyrinth in which the legendary Minotaur lived out its days".
I do not find these elements in the book. D'Arcy Thompson is not interested to the shape of mountains and sand dunes nor to the physics examples of spirals.
As for the twist of a strand of DNA, D'Arcy Thompson died in 1948...
Dear Gregory McNamee, "On growth and form" is a beautiful book that maybe in your case "repaid skimming", but repays much more a close reading. It is full with wonderful (and still actual) ideas mostly from biology that are sometimes hidden in a huge number of examples.
Mathematical-biological gems, 2007-09-28
This is a delightful book. I shall give some sample highlights. First some things from the particularly enjoyable chapter 2, "On Magnitude".
Raindrops come in the sizes 2^n (p. 59, Dover ed.). Proof: As they leave the cloud the rain drops are all of the same size. If two rain drops meet they make one raindrop of twice the mass, as so start falling faster than the singles. Thus it will never merge with a single to make a size 3 drop, but it may join another double to make a quadruple drop. Of course the quadruples fall faster than the doubles and the singles, so they will only merge with other quadruples, and so on.
Many results are derived from "dimension theory". A simple illustration is the following "paradox" of constant-temperature animals (pp. 33-34). "The heat lost must ... be proportional to the surface of the animal: and the gain must be equal to the loss, since the temperature of the body keeps constant. It would seem, therefore, that the heat lost by radiation and that gained by oxidation vary both alike, as the surface-area, or the square of the linear dimensions, of the animal. But this result is paradoxical; for whereas the heat lost may well vary as the surface-area [i.e., as l^2], that produced by oxidation ought rather to vary as the bulk of the animal [i.e., as l^3]". Thus one is "driven to the conclusion that the smaller animal does produce more heat (per unit mass) than the larger one, in order to keep pace with surface loss; and that this extra heat-production means more energy spent, more food consumed, more work done."
Another illustration of dimension theory: the maximum jumping height of an animal is constant under scaling (p. 37), for "the work done in leaping is proportional to the mass and to the height to which it is raised, W proportional to mH. But the muscular power available for this work is proportional to the mass of muscle, ... W proportional to m. It follows that H is ... a constant. In other words, all animals, provided that they are similarly fashioned, with their various levers in like proportion, ought to jump not to the same relative but to the same actual height." It follows that "neither flea nor grasshopper is a better but rather a worse jumper than a horse or a man."
Yet another illustration of dimension theory: the maximum velocity of a fish is proportional to sqrt(length), "For the velocity (V) which the fish attains depends on the work (W) it can do and the resistance (R) it must overcome. Now we have seen that the dimensions of W are l^3 [muscle volume], and of R are l^2 [surface area friction]; and by elementary mechanics W is proportional to RV^2, or V^2 proportional to W/R. Therefore V^2 is proportional to l^3/l^2=l, and V proportional to sqrt(l)" (p. 31).
For land animals, however, velocity is constant under scaling (p. 38), as we se by considering "the momentum created ... by a given force acting for a given time: mv=Ft. We know that m is proportional to l^3 and t=l/v, so that l^3v=Fl/v, or v^2=F/l^2. But whatsoever force be available, the animal may only exert so much of it as is in proportion to the strength of his own limbs, that is to say to the cross-section of bone, sinew and muscle; and all of these cross-sections are proportional to l^2, the square of the linear dimensions. The maximal force, F_max, which the animal dare exert is proportional, then, to l^2; therefore F_max/l^2=contant. And the maximal speed which the animal can safely reach ... is also constant."
Geodesics: "an instructive case is furnished by the arrangement of the muscular fibres on the surface of a hollow organ, such as the heart or the stomach. ... In fact we have a right to expect that the muscular fibres covering such organs will coincide with geodesic lines ... For if we imagine a contractible fibre ... to be fixed by its two ends upon a curved surface, it is obvious that its first effort of contraction will tend to expend itself in accommodating the band to the form of the surface, in 'stretching it tight,' ... and it is only then that further contraction will have the effect of constricting the tube and so exercising pressure on its contents. Thus the muscular fibres ... arrange themselves automatically in geodesic curves: in precisely the same manner as we also construct complex systems of geodesics whenever we wind a ball of wool or spindle a tow, or when the skilful surgeon bandages a limb" (pp. 742-744).
Comparative anatomy of bridges. A parabolic arch bridge is designed to distribute stress uniformly. Its shape is determined by a "stress diagram": if we imagine the bridge as a beam on two pillars and plot the stress as a function of position on the bridge then we get precisely the arch needed to equi-distribute this stress. More generally, "Every diagram of moments represents the outline of a framed structure which will carry the given load with a uniform horizontal stress" (p. 996), and "to precisely those stress-lines has Nature kept in the building of the bone" (p. 995). So, for example, "whenever the head and neck represent a considerable fraction of the whole weight of the body, we tend to have large bending-moments over the fore-legs, and correspondingly high spines over the vertebrae of the withers ... The case is sufficiently exemplified by the horse, and still more notably by the stag, the ox, or the pig." (p. 1003).
a classic compilation of very neat gems, 2007-01-05
This book is a *classic*; an adventure into abstract mathematical properties of nature. The author rambles on about many topics concerning natural manifestations as viewed from near human and cellular scales, with the tools of the early 20th century. It's that enigmatic space between Biology and Geometry, presented in a very accessible manner by an author whose love and knowledge of the subject shines through well.
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 591.1
EAN: 9780486671352
ISBN: 0486671356
Label: Dover Publications
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 1116
Publication Date: 1992-06-23
Publisher: Dover Publications
Studio: Dover Publications |
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