The Lens of Mathematics
*book review: The Mathematics of Life by Ian Stewart
Mind ready, self
ready, I was on to my 2nd book review. First few pages were very easy to grasp,
it was like having a review of high school biology lessons. As I get through
some chapters, I was starting to say, “Am I reading the right one? Why is it
this easy?”
Math phobic? No worries. This wont harm you. Don’t be discouraged by the title. No need for a deep background in math to qualify in reading this one, just a little math and an open mind. For pure and hard core math enthusiast, this maybe a waste of time.
Going farther and farther into the book, Oh gosh! I was tricked. I can already sense the emergence of the author’s idea. Unconsciously, I was hooked into relating life to math. The exact arrangement at a specific angle degree of the seed of a sunflower, the angles of each leaves on a planet. I was wondering that time, “Why is it 137.5 degrees termed to be the golden angle? In what way nature makes use of it? Such an amazing demonstration of work!
Essentially, Stewart is upto discussing the significantly increasing importance of math in understanding the living. He touches on the macroscopic living as well as into the molecular level, microbiology. He considers explaining biology using game theory evolution by having the idea of the needs for life to emerge so with the accompanying conditions.
The first part of the book mainly talked about the history of biology, and the 5 revolutions : microscope, classification, evolution, genetics and DNA structure. The following chapters were a lot of math basics : Fibonacci series, Lucas sequence, topology, geometry, group and network theory, probability, mathematical models with its relation to biology. Math promotes understanding of the living.Then the 6th revolution now comes in as what Stewart perceived it. The book was like about historical biological events and the like having math to play a great role in the development of science and a lot of its discoveries.
Such cases are stated as an evidence of the increasing influence of math in life science. He was into explaining math as much as physics as a tool in deducing approximations that will aid in understanding biological processes. He even mentioned about its contribution on the speedup genome reading. It was partially done by the advanced techniques and faster computers but importantly, it was math that made the progress prosper, it was the algorithms that were used to reprogram the data.
The book’s context is getting deeper and deeper that it was already hard to absorb. I had to ask help from my Google buddy for that. If I can, I’ll take my round 2 in reading the book just to understand it better.
Stewart did great on the book specially on the part of Darwin’s life. I believe this has to have a lot of research on the part of Stewart and the Editor. So many thoughts and facts that they fail to review on the factual errors. He stated there some of the Mendelian crosses which are not correct. It’s not good for a book to be spotted with numerous errors. It brings doubt to the reader and worst a bad image for the author.
As I go along, there were some ideas that were not completely explained which can be confusing. Say for instance, the discussion about the protein structure, I was assuming that he’ll end up establishing mathematical theory and approaches on solving the protein folding issue, but sadly he just closed it by stating some metric about the folding of protein. One point also when he was discussing the structure of viruses which some are found in 3 dimensional cross sections of 4 dimensional lattices. Again, he just end up without even giving it an explanation. Many questions are left hanging! Truly misleading.
There was a chapter in this book, “ Lizard Games” which circles on the idea of the mating strategies of the side-blotched lizard. In this chapter, He has lot of puzzles that are left open and unfinished which can lead to formulating an incorrect understanding. If only Stewart did careful polishing on the content of the book.
I had encounter some thoughts of the existence of life on other planets. Very enlightening. I’m a fan of aliens. Stewart gets into the idea that aliens may or may not require the environment say planetary system like the Earth just to exist. There could be a wide array of planetary conditions in which life can emerge. He rejected conclusions based on conditions seems to be normal in Earth.
Stewart was successful in relating math with biology but he fails to establish that biology has its way into a mathematical revolution. He keeps on telling patterns, angles and the nature’s mathematical secrets. We’ll that’s only linear algebra, basic math, very objective, unlike the modern math, higher and highly complicated. If he does go higher, the book loses its way already He greatly use analogies to explain his thoughts.
Even though there are a lot of errors, Stewart was successful in explaining how bio + math interrelated with regards to the natural world. He had applied a lot of mathematical methods to biology. It was good enough to be comprehended by the layman.
Math phobic? No worries. This wont harm you. Don’t be discouraged by the title. No need for a deep background in math to qualify in reading this one, just a little math and an open mind. For pure and hard core math enthusiast, this maybe a waste of time.
Going farther and farther into the book, Oh gosh! I was tricked. I can already sense the emergence of the author’s idea. Unconsciously, I was hooked into relating life to math. The exact arrangement at a specific angle degree of the seed of a sunflower, the angles of each leaves on a planet. I was wondering that time, “Why is it 137.5 degrees termed to be the golden angle? In what way nature makes use of it? Such an amazing demonstration of work!
Essentially, Stewart is upto discussing the significantly increasing importance of math in understanding the living. He touches on the macroscopic living as well as into the molecular level, microbiology. He considers explaining biology using game theory evolution by having the idea of the needs for life to emerge so with the accompanying conditions.
The first part of the book mainly talked about the history of biology, and the 5 revolutions : microscope, classification, evolution, genetics and DNA structure. The following chapters were a lot of math basics : Fibonacci series, Lucas sequence, topology, geometry, group and network theory, probability, mathematical models with its relation to biology. Math promotes understanding of the living.Then the 6th revolution now comes in as what Stewart perceived it. The book was like about historical biological events and the like having math to play a great role in the development of science and a lot of its discoveries.
Such cases are stated as an evidence of the increasing influence of math in life science. He was into explaining math as much as physics as a tool in deducing approximations that will aid in understanding biological processes. He even mentioned about its contribution on the speedup genome reading. It was partially done by the advanced techniques and faster computers but importantly, it was math that made the progress prosper, it was the algorithms that were used to reprogram the data.
The book’s context is getting deeper and deeper that it was already hard to absorb. I had to ask help from my Google buddy for that. If I can, I’ll take my round 2 in reading the book just to understand it better.
Stewart did great on the book specially on the part of Darwin’s life. I believe this has to have a lot of research on the part of Stewart and the Editor. So many thoughts and facts that they fail to review on the factual errors. He stated there some of the Mendelian crosses which are not correct. It’s not good for a book to be spotted with numerous errors. It brings doubt to the reader and worst a bad image for the author.
As I go along, there were some ideas that were not completely explained which can be confusing. Say for instance, the discussion about the protein structure, I was assuming that he’ll end up establishing mathematical theory and approaches on solving the protein folding issue, but sadly he just closed it by stating some metric about the folding of protein. One point also when he was discussing the structure of viruses which some are found in 3 dimensional cross sections of 4 dimensional lattices. Again, he just end up without even giving it an explanation. Many questions are left hanging! Truly misleading.
There was a chapter in this book, “ Lizard Games” which circles on the idea of the mating strategies of the side-blotched lizard. In this chapter, He has lot of puzzles that are left open and unfinished which can lead to formulating an incorrect understanding. If only Stewart did careful polishing on the content of the book.
I had encounter some thoughts of the existence of life on other planets. Very enlightening. I’m a fan of aliens. Stewart gets into the idea that aliens may or may not require the environment say planetary system like the Earth just to exist. There could be a wide array of planetary conditions in which life can emerge. He rejected conclusions based on conditions seems to be normal in Earth.
Stewart was successful in relating math with biology but he fails to establish that biology has its way into a mathematical revolution. He keeps on telling patterns, angles and the nature’s mathematical secrets. We’ll that’s only linear algebra, basic math, very objective, unlike the modern math, higher and highly complicated. If he does go higher, the book loses its way already He greatly use analogies to explain his thoughts.
Even though there are a lot of errors, Stewart was successful in explaining how bio + math interrelated with regards to the natural world. He had applied a lot of mathematical methods to biology. It was good enough to be comprehended by the layman.
The book is good
at many points same with its critical points. I think it would be better if the
author did a polishing on it. Overall, it was really a brilliant piece. One
thing is for sure, there are a lot of things yet to be discovered and math will
have something to do with it, it may not be so clear this time but it’ll
progress through time.
I liked how you also pointed out about what you didn't like about Stewart's book or the negatives, on your opinion, like the topics he left hanging, the topics he failed to established, etc. For me, a good book review sees the negatives as well, and not just the positives. :)
ReplyDeletethanks for appreciating! Hehehhe I thought I'll be hang up by my review.
DeleteNice shot queen. There you spotted some his errors! Bull's eye. Nice review. Get well soon ^_^
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteTrue! Even though I am not a fan of math, I really appreciate math's part in loving bio, i mean in their progress. Many discoveries are still coming, it just need a powerful hands and also time.
ReplyDeleteCLap clap! Nice article, good job. But hinay2x lng sa pag criticize
ReplyDeleteUnconsciously, bio is bounded with math. It may not seem so clear but it math is one of the reasons that make it prosper. Thanks Mr. Math
ReplyDeleteBrave act! You were able to state some of his errors. No matter how brilliant he is, still he'll be spotted with many errors, well, he's still a human. For the content. I must reflect that math really did great on math, and we have to acknowledge that.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that some terminologies is quite difficult to understand but the totality of the book is interesting and comprehensible.
ReplyDeleteNice work at the article. Very interesting. How brave of you to spill Stewart's errors.
ReplyDelete"Just a little math and an open mind" I totally like this phrase :D.., Relating math and bio sounds interesting..
ReplyDeleteThanks. I like that phrase too, (#praisingmyself)
DeleteThe review is indeed a job well done. As I scanned through the comments of others who previously read your article, they pointed out the fact that you brilliantly reveal the errors of the book. Well that was a great idea of you. It'll help the soon-to-be readers of the book to brace themselves for errors. But tbh, the totality of the article about bio and math as one is a one great shot. Math is indeed a helpful tool for scientist to give accurate calculations that will lead to a less ignorant knowledge.
ReplyDeleteWell done. It's descriptive and critical both at the same time. It's also good to cite the highlights and errors of the book. Given that the topic of the book is well thought-out, your review appeared to organized and appropriate. Since this is your review, i don't think you should hold back on your criticisms (unlike others said so) because that's what you learned andobserved from the book. Good job by the way.
ReplyDelete