Mathematics of Life

Mathematics of Life is a book written by Ian Stewart. Ian Stewart is an English Mathematician and at the same time a professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick, England. He is widely known as popular-science and science-fiction writer.

His Mathematics of Life was about the 6^th revolution of Biology. He started with discussing the well-known 5 revolutions of Biology. The first one was the invention of microscope. No one knew who the first person was to have invented the lens, but it was Zacharias and Hans Janssen who invented the first usable microscope. The invention of microscope opened our eyes to the things that our bare eyes cannot see- “to the astonishing complexity of life on the smaller scale”.  One of this is the discovery of cells, the tiniest part of our body. We learned that we are composed of tiny cells and how these cells function. The second revolution of Biology was the classification or the Systema Naturae of Carl Linnaeus. Linnaeus was a Swedish botanist, doctor and zoologist. He classified living organisms through 3 kingdoms according to their classes, orders, genera and species. He catalogued these living organisms to make logical, clear-cut distinctions among the many creatures that exist.  The third revolution of Biology was the evolution of Charles Darwin. Most of us believed that we were created by God and mechanism of change is because of human intervention but Darwin saw that without any human intervention, animals can change through competition of resources. Animals in the ancient times that were weak were extinct but animals that survived to this day are the ones that produced the next generations. These are the ones that changed because of their adaptation to the environment. Charles said that this change is more gradual than made by human breeders. The fourth revolution of Biology is genetics. Gregor Mendel was curious what was responsible for the different features of organisms such as colour, size, texture, and shape. He observed the pea plants in his garden and found out that there were genes inside every living organism that determine the traits. The last well-known revolution of Biology is the structure of DNA. Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the structure of deoxyribose nuclei acid through the help of X-ray diffraction. This experiment led to double helix structure of the DNA. Each strand is composed of different molecules: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T); and these molecules come in pairs.

In the last part of the book, Stewart introduced the sixth ‘revolution’ of Biology- Mathematics.  But according to him, it is not really a revolution because it was not used to solve a biological problem before but the method per se was revolutionary. We all know mathematics because since elementary we were thought how to count. Mathematics was once the study of counting numbers but as time went by, it evolved and developed into measuring time, speed, and even the application of mathematics. Mathematics was present thousand years ago. It has worked hand in hand with physical science. According to Stewart, “By the seventeenth century, it has become a driving force behind dramatic advances in the physical sciences and today mathematics and physics (along with astronomy, chemistry, engineering and related areas) have become inseparable.”  Only late this twentieth century that mathematics has become an essential part in biology. He also said, “Mathematics provides a new point of view, addressing not just the ingredients for life, but the process that use the ingredients- it is how those ingredients are used”.  He gives an example of the application of mathematics in biology which is ‘bioinformatics’- It’s methods involved in the storage and manipulation of gigantic  data sets in computers. Stewart provides what mathematics can do to biology: it provides significant insights to the science itself, to help explain how life works.

Lastly, he closes his book by showing the part of mathematics in the 5 revolutions of biology: in Mendel’s discovery, there is a mathematical pattern in the numbers of plant with particular characteristics; in the development of microscope, soon there will be the mathematics of optic; in the DNA, Chargaff’s rule was one of the clues of determining the structure of it. (Chargaff’s rule is a striking but unexplained numerical relationship that couldn’t be coincidence; and in the evolution, recently, they used the chronometric survey which is a mathematical technique for fining longitude. This is how important the role of mathematics in biology.

I have truly enjoyed this book because it’s more understandable compared to the book of Robert Hersh, “What is mathematics really?” I really understood the impact of mathematics in the field of biology. Stewart explained clearly each revolution as if I was listening to my Science teacher in elementary and high school, way back, 6 years ago during my biology subject. It is a refresher for me to have read this kind of book. It’s not threatening for a Bachelor of Arts student like me.  Anyone can read and have a good grasp of it easily. I think it’s a must that biology and mathematics students should read this. I find this book helpful.