Perspectives
Nature Reviews Genetics 7, 401-406 (May 2006) | doi:10.1038/nrg1835
There is an Erratum (1 June 2006) associated with this article.
Article series: Historical Profiles
Timeline: D'Arcy Thompson and the theory of transformations
Wallace Arthur1 About the author
Abstract
D'Arcy Thompson was a biologist, a mathematician and a classicist. His writing was great literature as well as great science. He is primarily known for a single book — On Growth and Form — and indeed for a single chapter within it, on his 'theory of transformations', which shows how the differences between the forms of related species can be represented geometrically. This theory cries out for causal explanation, which is something the great man eschewed. Perhaps the time is close when comparative developmental genetics will be able to provide such an explanation.
Author affiliations
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Wallace Arthur is at the Department of Zoology, National University of Ireland, Galway, University Road, Galway, Ireland.
Email: wallace.arthur@nuigalway.ie
Published online 11 April 2006
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