Breaking News! Yearender's Mysterious Couple, Announced!

Ever heard of the saying, “Opposites attract?” Apparently, our little friends, biology and mathematics have a little secret they would like to share. Lo and behold, children of the universe!

Mathematics and biology are now an item! But wait, what’s this? A little bird told me they have actually been together for quite some time now. *Le gasp* And here I thought we could have avoided mathematics by pursuing biology. How could you destroy our little fantasy?

 

Once upon a time, mathematics was only about numbers and calculations of everyday problems in the market, then came the shapes, logic and processes, or anything that shows pattern and has structure. Biology on the other hand was all about the plants, animals and insects, then about cells, and now, it focuses about complex molecules. Do you see any connection between the two? No? Me too. They’re opposites, I tell you! Are you curious about how their love blossomed?

In Ian Stewart’s book entitled, “Mathematics of Life,” he explains about the process about on how mathematics and biology came together which have already existed from the Human Genome Project, the structure and organisation of cells and viruses, and the form and behaviour of organisms and their interplay in the ecosystem, he also explains just how math has done to explain the elements of life.

There are five revolutions which have changed the way scientist think about life. The revolutions were the creation of the microscope which gave us access to see and study the complexity of life, the classification of living creatures which was started by Carl Linnaeus, the theory of evolution which became more popular when “The Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin was published, the discovery of genes by Gregor Mendel, and the structure of DNA which was prompted by the experimental technique, X-ray diffraction. And according to Stewart, his sixth biological revolution, mathematics, unites them all.

Mathematics has already been part of the development and improvement of physical sciences for hundreds of year and in present times, we wouldn’t see physics and even chemistry, astronomy and other related fields without it. In biology, on the other hand, it is mostly about how mathematics helps us to not only understand what life is but also how it works by using mathematical techniques, apparatus, and viewpoints.

Some examples in which mathematics has combined with biology which Stewart has mentioned, are in dealing with the mathematics of optics, which developed after the creation of microscope, but is still useful in inventing better microscope, the mathematical patterns in the number of plants or other living thing that show a specific characteristic, Chargaff’s rule and the numerical relationship with the structure of the DNA, Bragg’s law for X-ray diffraction. He also mentioned about how mathematicians could help biologists with models. He explained about the possibility of other forms of life outside Earth and that part of the art of biomathematics is the selection of useful models. Through this models we could understand life more easily. And if I remember correctly, a month ago, we met a mathematician and she showed us a PowerPoint presentation which had math and biology combines. I now understood how mathematicians could work together with biologist.

The combination of mathematics and biology still seems a bit weird for me, but it also feels right. Mathematics will never dominate biology though unlike chemistry and physics, it will just be a partner or tool in order to unravel the mystery of life.