Mathematics of life--A book review

               Mathematics is very important to our world. It is everywhere. Students tend to pick courses without a math subject. But I don’t think that’s possible. It is hard to draw a line between the sciences and mathematics. Out of all the branches of science I think biology has the clearest line. But now, as technology progresses the line becomes blurry…

               Mathematics is mostly used in the physical sciences like physics, chemistry, engineering and astronomy.  Biology does not use mathematics that much. Math in this branch of science is just merely an instrument in analyzing data. Biologists did not give much attention to mathematics because to them it is does not contribute much to the understanding of living things. But as science is evolving, cooperation with mathematics and mathematical ideas are needed in order to discover new ideas and invent.

               The book “Mathematics of Life” written by Ian Stewart introduced the sixth revolution of biology—mathematics. The first five were: inventing the microscope; systematically classifying the planet's living creatures; recognizing evolution by natural selection; discovering the gene; and determining the structure of DNA.

               In the first part of the book, Stewart introduced and elaborated the first five revolutions. Then, he introduced the sixth revolution which is mathematics. In the book, he introduced concepts in biology which has been greatly helped by mathematics.

               One thing Stewart discussed in the book is the Fibonacci numbers. He used plants in finding these numbers. Examples that show these are the arrangement of leaves in the stems of the plant (phyllotaxis), number of petals in flowers, the geometry of seed heads and the way pineapples and pine cones fit together.

               Another thing discussed in the book where I was interested in where viruses. There he explained its geometry. Biologists were also able to find out that the shape of the viruses was like the Fuller’s geodesic dome.

               As what Stewart stated, “Traditionally, biology was the branch of science recommended to students who preferred to avoid mathematics if at all possible.” I don’t think that is possible now. I think from the start, mathematics has already been a part of biology.

               I think he was able to prove his argument about the sixth revolution of biology. However, there is little mathematics mentioned in the book than biology.

               Even though he has proven his point that mathematics plays a big role in biology, I don’t think it will dominate biology just like what it has done in physics.

               On the whole, the book was written clearly and it was well-ordered. The book can easily be understood and thorough explanations of his examples were given. You don’t need to review your high school biology since all the information you need to understand his point was already there. It was quite impressive since most math and biology books are usually boring for me but this I was interested with this one.