Putting Life into Numbers

        When thinking of numbers, we eventually relate it with equations, problem solving, physics, and statistics. It mainly uses different concepts and theorems in trying to interpret such problems where answer can be simplified in a numerical form. The application of mathematics can vastly observe in physical sciences and until recently, in life sciences.

            Biology, according to Mathematics of Life by Ian Stewart, was mainly about the study of animals and plants where mathematics was only used for calculations and testing for the significance of statistical patterns of the given data. Recently, this field of study started to expand into a more complex and more specific level of knowledge as a new contribution of different discoveries piled up, where mathematical input is now needed to answer scientific questions that are risen up. Mathematics can now also be used for conceptualizing and illustrating scientific findings.

            The author aims to show the usefulness of mathematics in the field of biology beyond its application in analysing data about living creatures. He wants to establish that mathematics is a method used for understanding the activities behind such occurrence of life and how it helps in understanding not only the definition of life but also its mechanisms.

            The book mainly evolved around the topic of revolutions that Stewart believed to be the reason behind the changes in the way scientist view life. As the book dig further into mathematical biology, the five revolutions were explored individually, where he stated, will help in establishing the platform for his sixth revolution, mathematics.   

            He started off by providing an overview for each of the first five revolutions. These were the invention of the microscope, the development of a systematic way of classifying organisms, the theory of evolution, gene discovery and the structure of the DNA. He mentioned some of the greatest minds behind these discoveries and developments which were further discussed in the proceeding chapters.

            From there, he discussed the invention of the optic lenses, the microscope and telescope by Anton van Leeuwenhoek and Galileo Galilei, respectively. He pointed out how different the ‘religious’ people reacted in the matter where the discovery of telescope had received more criticism than that of the microscope where both have the same concept of viewing the unknown; the greater world beyond our world and the smaller world within our surroundings.

            For the classification of the organisms, he introduced Carl Linnaeus as the first person to establish a systematic way of classification. He mentioned its historical development into what it is today. In this chapter, I find his example of the Noah’s Arc quite amusing and a bit conceited. From the way he pointed out the flaws of the story and even in his further discussions involving religious beliefs, he can be more of a scientific person than a religious one. The next chapter outlined the story of one of the first application of mathematics in the problem involving the counting of plant organs and the patterns of numbers and shapes of leaves and flowers. The concept of Fibonacci’s number, Lucas’ number, the golden number and angle were mentioned and explained.

            He proceeded to the development of the evolution theory of Charles Darwin. In this part, he was able to show some of the behind stories of how Darwin conceptualize the idea. Some of the information was new to me such as the family background of Charles Darwin especially his grandfather. Also, the story behind him and that of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was also interesting. Lamarck, having his name associated with the discredited view of evolution, the ‘inheritance of acquired characteristics’, had greater ideas beyond his known concept of evolution.

            Development of the gene theory of Gregor Mendel was explained and discussed where he again, was able to present the historical background of the discovery and also its discoverer and contributors. It was then followed by the chapter discussing the development of the structure of DNA with the contribution of different scientists.

            After discussing the first five revolutions, he discussed some of the fields of biology where mathematics are applied and used. Human Genome project, viewing virus beyond three dimensions, the wirings in the human brain, the knot theory used for analysing tangled DNA, interpreting the spots and markings on animals using ‘reaction-diffusion’ equation and more were given as an example where mathematics are now involved in the study of life. His discussion of defining life by putting the existence of extra-terrestrial organisms into question was also interesting.

            He finishes off by pointing out that in the current state of scientific research, group of diverse individual with different specialty or field of study are encouraged to determine and understand the most complex form of knowledge which are still unknown. He highlighted the idea that mathematics is now becoming more important in biology and its usefulness is more than just calculating and interpreting data’s significance.

            Before reading the book, as a biology student, I cannot find the connection of mathematics in the field of biology. I was not able to comprehend how numbers can be that important in knowing the mechanism and how life works. But with this book, the author was able to explain the importance of numbers in the life of researchers and scientists.

            Generally, the book was interesting and that it is very informative. The way Stewart wrote the book was light and even with some technical terms, it was understandable. He successfully relay how useful mathematics is in the field of biology and that in some ways, mathematics is now needed and required for further and more complicated analysis.