On Growth and Form [Hardcover]

D'arcy Wentworth Thompson (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1116 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press and Macmillan Company; 1st edition (1942)
• ASIN: B0018EFERQ
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,495,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

151 of 153 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Canto: An unfortunate redaction of a timeless classic, June 21, 2005

By 

Golan Levin (Pittsburgh) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On Growth and Form (Paperback)

Don't get me wrong -- "On Growth and Form" is one of my absolute top favorite books of all time. Possibly my favorite book, in fact. This review is a warning to make sure you get the right imprint.

Unfortunately some publishers think that they know better than D'Arcy Thompson, and cut out more than half of the original material. After all, nobody these days actually looks at equations, right? Well I do, and the pathetic edition by Canto (368 pages) weighs with less than 33% of the material in the modern unexpurgated reprint by Dover (1116 pages).

Amazingly enough, the redacted Canto version costs nearly the same as the Dover complete. If you care about this material, take care to get all of it.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars simply a marvellous exposition of ideas, March 22, 2000

By 

Frank Bierbrauer (Cardiff, Wales, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On Growth and Form: The Complete Revised Edition (Dover Books on Biology) (Paperback)

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.

31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Illuminates the essence of understanding - Classic Overview, January 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: On Growth and Form: The Complete Revised Edition (Dover Books on Biology) (Paperback)

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.