For years,
mathematics had never given a chance to contribute to our knowledge of life and
living things. This was true until the past decade, when an emerging field of
biology uses mathematics as a key to the underlying questions of life science
that have never been answered. In this book, Stewart presses his main objective
that mathematics is a revolution in biology; written in a clear, well organized
manner that is easily comprehensible to ordinary people.
The first chapters of
the book would suggest that you’re reading a biology textbook since it discusses
the five scientific discoveries and their impact on life science. You’ll be
reading the history of the microscope, principles of evolution and taxonomy, how
the structure of DNA was developed and genetics, including the intriguing Human
Genome Project. Most of these were already familiar to me since I have taken a
General Biology course last semester. However, it served as a good refresher to
my knowledge.
Mixed up topics were
tackled in the following passages, where the author takes in remarkably complex
mathematics. Yet, he explains them in terms that everyone will be able to
understand. You’ll also learn that there are many oddities found in nature that
have mathematical twists. And he explains them mainly relying on analogies. If
you like analyzing things to understand new ideas, then this book is worth
reading.
Having biased towards
natural science, I enjoyed the book because it talked much about concepts of
biology and at the same time intersecting those with mathematics. However become
slightly disappointed for some of the author’s explanations. I felt like they
were stretched and were getting less effective as the chapters succeeded. Regardless,
his argument that biology needs mathematics to advance is convincing.
Overall, this book is
a fascinating read. Whether you’re into science or mathematics don’t matter
because you’ll discover a lot of new learning; plus it is engaging! You’ll
find yourself wanting for more or dig deeper in the discussion of the details.
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