The Mathematics of Life by Ian Stewart

Most of us know that Mathematics is all about numbers, solving problems, finding solutions, a helpful tool to build the lives of men for progression. On the other hand, Biology is a study of life. We all picture it out as a study of plants, animals, human beings and it covers every living organisms exist in the universe. We may have wonder what are the relationship of the two, some of us may think that Mathematics and Biology are different from each other and are not related, until The Mathematics of life by Ian Stewart existed, a book wherein it unleashes the distinctness of the two major subjects.

We may say that Biology as a whole contains no numbers or equations, but that does not mean that mathematics has no role to play in the science of life. The book by Ian Stewart successfully unfolded the Mathematics behind Biology. The book includes five great revolutions that changed the way of thinking of many scientists as they see life. The microscope, classification, evolution, genetics and structure of DNA were the five great revolutions. The first part of the book explains the characteristics of each five revolutions, this book also includes the progression of biology through time, one of the scientific discoveries that caught my attention was Crick and Watson, wherein they have figured out the correct structure of DNA “the secret of life” as they say, they paved a way for the advancement of medicine and agriculture. After their study, there were many Science Breakthroughs that followed and developed.

As the world continues to change, the five revolutions were used and another scientific breakthrough has aroused, the birth of the sixth great revolution which is Mathematics. Mathematics has become a “standard piece of kit in the biological toolbox” as time goes by, Biologists has now used mathematics as a tool for scientific research, the most used mathematical technique is statistics. A revolution in which Mathematics have been a tool for biologists to analyze data about living organisms. The book widens our perspective about Mathematics, it destroys the barriers and the traditional way we think about math that it focuses only for numbers, problems and solutions, Stewart pointed out that these are only limited knowledge about Mathematics, there is more of it in real life.

This book provides a lot of evidences that will link Mathematics and Biology, and will give knowledge of the many scientific breakthroughs that Biologists accomplished through the help of Mathematics. The realization came into my mind that Mathematics we learned from school is only a very small part, only a few pages of what really mathematics is. It is true that Mathematics covers million page more, compared to what we know today.