ABOUT BOOK

The rules by which anatomical size and shape are generated have intrigued scientists ~for centuries. In 1638, Galileo suggested a mathematical relationship between proportional ~changes in the shape of bones as animals increase in size, which he argued ~was a functional necessity for weight bearing (1914). The formalism of Galileo, ~whereby, physical forces and mathematical laws became integrated with studies ~of size and shape in biology, was most conspicuously encapsulated over a hundred ~years ago in the 1917 monumental tome by D’Arcy Thompson entitled, On Growth ~and Form (Thompson 1917). In a breathtakingly comprehensive manner, Thompson ~synthesized the observations of numerous predecessors and contemporaries, and ~through countless examples built a theoretical and experimental framework for ~describing changes in morphology that persists to this day (Stern and Emlen 1999; ~Arthur 2006).