The Mathematics of Life by Ian Stewart Basic Books/Profile Books, 2011 358 pages, Hardcover US$16.68 on Amazon.com

摘要

The Mathematics of Life contains 19 chapters. Chapter 8, "The Book of Life," focuses on the Human Genome Project, and algorithmic challenges of DNA sequencing. However, as this possibly the area most familiar to SIGACT News readers, I will only mention it briefly, and, instead, focus on chapters that introduced me to areas of mathematical biology I had not previously encountered. Perhaps the most direct connection to (the roots of) theoretical computer science comes in Chapter 13, "Spots and Stripes," where Stewart considers Alan Turing's famous paper, The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis, and sketches the development of biological thought about animal markings since Turing's groundbreaking proposal. As Stewart says: For half a century, mathematical biologists have built on Turing's ideas. His specific model, and the biological theory of pattern-formation that motivated it, turns out to be too simple to explain many details of animal markings, but it captures many important features in a simple context, and points the way to models that are biologically realistic.