Biologie mathématique

Abstract

THIS is an admirable little book. It does notpretend to teach a biologist mathematics: it does not deal with the ready-made mathematics (so to speak) of the snail-shell, the fir-cone or the honeycomb: it opens our eyes to a variety of biological problems which lie remote from elementary or conventional mathematics, but may nevertheless be brought under mathematical treat ment with great advantage. To learn, ad hoc, this or that chapter of mathematics, does a bio logist little good; all he wants? and what a deal it is?is to lap up something of the spirit of mathe matics, to learn how the mathematician economizes thought by his symbols, simplifies argument by his equations, starts from unequivocal postulates, uses an ancient and traditional logic, and has his own unmistakable ways of saying what he knows and what he wants to know. These are the advantages, or some of them, which bring one science after another under the spell and dominion of mathematics.

Biologie mathématique

Par Prof. V. A. Kostitzin. (Collection Armand Colin: Section de biologie, No. 200.) Pp. 223. (Paris: Armand Colin, 1937.) 13 francs.