From Library Journal
While long an indispensable tool for the physical sciences, mathematics has only relatively recently been used to describe the symmetry of the living world. Stewart sees mathematical laws at work even at the level of DNA replication.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Scientific American
Life's first secret, Stewart says, is the molecular structure of DNA. The other secret, he believes, is mathematical control of a growing organism. (Mathematician Stewart's activities include conducting this magazine's Mathematical Recreations department.) Arguing that "life is a partnership between genes and mathematics," he embarks on an absorbing study of what life is, how it originated and how the search for mathematical laws that underlie the behavior of living organisms will illuminate those deep questions. Along the way, he examines mathematical patterns in flowers, bird feathers, animal locomotion and many other features of life. But he hopes for much more profound findings in biomathematics. "A full understanding of life depends on mathematics," he writes. "At every level of scale, from molecules to ecosystems, we find mathematical patterns in innumerable aspects of life. It is time we put the mathematics and the biology together."
See all Editorial Reviews