Connection. This word
might mean a lot of things. This may make life easier. This may enlighten
theoretical problems. This may lead to new discoveries and wonders.
Reading through the book “The Mathematics of Life” by Ian
Stewart boggled many questions and at the same time answered mysteries that may
possibly arise in the near future. Tricky it is that the author tried to make
interconnections of two fields that make impact in today’s world, however, the
coherence and flow of the reading made the whole work successful.
The book started vaguely as the author tried to pursue
linkage between Biology and Mathematics. As a Biology major in the university, I
am conscious enough that mathematics has a vital role in biological studies.
However, being well-informed in the theories of mechanisms and complexities in
living systems sometimes limits my idea of the existence of biomathematics. The
early part of the book introduced the five revolutions in biology: the
microscope, classification, evolution, genetics and the DNA structure. The
author tried to address that biology started with observations and queries
which had led to new revolutions as time goes. He then introduced mathematics
as the sixth. The main thing that I have reflected with the explanation of the
sixth revolution was that mathematics learned basically at school is just a
tiny view of what it really is. Indeed, it is hard for us to understand how it
could explain the complexity in creatures but as we see today, it is widely
used in research through the computer. Statistics and other fields are becoming
helpful in answering hypotheses in biology. This approach constructed by the
author could effectively lead my track as I read the next chapters.
This is an important feature in all bodies of knowledge.
The author scrutinized complexities of living creatures through crediting the
development of instruments used in scientific research. Through the invention
of the microscope, protists, cells and other biological forms were studied and
new knowledge were generated. Classification of living forms, on the other
hand, put the starting hint in me on the inclusion of mathematics to biology.
How plants and animals are classified is an essential way to study life.
Characteristics such as shapes and patterns that could be observed are
significant. And as I could recall, mathematics is the science of patterns.
“Florally Finding
Fibonacci” was interesting at first sight. Mathematics and Biology in one
phrase, perfect. It was really amusing for me to get to learn Fibonacci in this
book. As basic as possible, I see it as a body of knowledge that deals with
sequence of numbers. And surprisingly, it was seen on patterns of some traits
of living forms such as number of petals of different flowers of angiosperms,
phyllotaxis, patterns of the spots in pineapples and a lot more. Now it made me
clear how the first two revolutions got connected with math. Indeed, numerical
patterns in living creatures can be seen in detail.
We all wonder how it all started. The issues revolving
existence and philosophy. The evolution of species might be a key to answering
several questions on mutations as well as the phenomena that are frequently
happening today. As what I could infer from the book, characterizing evolution
has figured out patterns. These patterns have led also to the next revolution
in biology which is genetics. I struggle in our genetics class. However, I find
it quite interesting when mathematics comes in especially in solving
frequencies and also discovering patterns. The application of mathematics in
this field was briefly explained in the 6th chapter. The fifth
revolution is the DNA structure known as the molecule of life. This is where
genetics and evolutions revolve. As it is composed of nitrogenous bases,
percentage of such were computed in each species. Its discovery was indeed
remarkable and evolutionary.
Now that the author has established basic information
about the 5 revolutions in biology, I am quite excited on his approach on
explaining the vital role of mathematics in this field of study. The discovery
of the DNA structure opened the way to more research problems and more
opportunities for development of knowledge. On the chapter tackling about
taxonomy, I was very interested to have learned how big the contribution of
math in Biology is. In taxonomy, phyologenetic trees are essential. Forming
cladograms are metaphorically similar to mathematical trees as said in the
book. Also, the probabilities of the number of forms trees could have is
important to taxonomical research. I was pretty much astonished on how people
in the old days interconnected these knowledge. Moreover, I thought that maybe
the discovery of its interconnections is spontaneous.
As I see in today’s world, viral infections and diseases
are rapidly increasing. I never thought that in a broad science of math, it can
be applied to the features of these viruses such as its shape (e.g.
icosahedral) and a lot more in its genetic material. Such mathematical studies
are important in the study of molecular biology as well as searching for new
breakthroughs in medicine. Also, math became more attached to biology on
studying nerves and complexities in the human brain. Studying the brain using
our brain is indeed fun. The axons and the dendrites and the neurons and all
the nerves follow numerical details which amazed me as a reader. It gets more
peculiar and unique as I learned that even through the simplest detail in an
animal’s body pattern, math should be employed such as in spots and in the
stripes, its symmetries and the like. The application of mathematics to animal
morphology is what I vaguely saw before. In ecology, a broad topic on species
interaction and diversity, more numbers and statistics are used. Studying
populations is undeniably vital in predicting the global status environmentally
and ecologically since we encounter more and more problems everyday.
Now we see that the world is indeed full of
complications, but thinking that the Earth is just a piece of dust in the
universe, it’s immeasurable. Upon finishing the book, I could not explain how
enlightened I am to the fact that in the world of science, everything is
related. It makes me even think that mathematics is bigger than the universe
since it goes beyond limits. As a biology student, it is very astonishing to
think that to become a great biologist, you should be well-balanced in all
fields.
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