Product Description

Why do living things and physical phenomena take the form they do? D’Arcy Thompson’s classic On Growth and Form looks at the way things grow and the shapes they take. Analysing biological processes in their mathematical and physical aspects, this historic work, first published in 1917, has also become renowned for the sheer poetry of its descriptions. A great scientist sensitive to the fascinations and beauty of the natural world tells of jumping fleas and slipper limpets; of buds and seeds; of bees’ cells and rain drops; of the potter’s thumb and the spider’s web; of a film of soap and a bubble of oil; of a splash of a pebble in a pond. D’Arcy Thompson’s writing, hailed as ‘good literature as well as good science; a discourse on science as though it were a humanity’, is now made available for a wider readership, with a foreword by one of today’s great populisers of science, explaining the importance of the work for a new generation of readers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #138698 in Books
• Published on: 1992-07-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 346 pages

Customer Reviews

simply a marvellous exposition of ideas
I heard about this marvellous book as I was reading in the typical popular science literature years ago now but its almost impossible to avoid contact with this tome of the archetypal polymath D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. A remarkable man with a wonderful open view of science and the, what's now called, interdisciplinarian approach to the world. Refreshingly full of new ideas especially for his day and even now where conservatism as usual is the norm in scientific circles. I hope many scientists read this book and see not just a curiosity but a representation of a whole approach to the world of nature. I will never forget the first time I read the chapter on coordinate transformations in animal shapes, today's schools simply do not inspire in this way and its time this changed. The prescence of this book, well read, on any person's bookshelf is a must.

A science classic. The meaning of form. Invention of chaos
A science masterpiece. Written during WWI, revised during WW2. An amazing amount of knowledge, viewed through the eyes of an incredibly perceptive scholar and scientist. Early 20th century writing style. Greek, Latin, French and German citations. From the prefatory note: "an easy introduction to the study of organic Form, by methods which are the common places of physical science, which are by no means novel in their application to natural history, but which nevertheless naturalists are little accustomed to employ." Thompson's theory of transformations is covered in the last chapter.

An accessible version of a classic
Peter Medawar called Growth and Form a classic of biological literature. This new edition makes it an accessible classic. Originally it was two volumes and over 1000 pages this edited volume and it was a challenging read. This new edition has kept Thompsons fantastic illustrations and removed some of the failings of the original text updating what is sure to become a classic of "systems biology"