Book Reviews - Ian Stewart

A few years now since I read this, and a lot of it was over my head even then. However, I understood enough to find it very interesting. It's about the mathematics of chaos, and why so many natural phenemena are inherently unpredictable: a minute change in the initial state of a system can fundamentally alter its behaviour later on - though it may be a very long time indeed before the bifurcation is manifested.

That's about as much as I can remember of this book. Stewart makes a good attempt at explaining some very arcane mathematical concepts in layman's terms, sweetening the pill with a slightly wacky, Douglas Adams-like prose style which sometimes comes off and sometimes grates a little.

An occasionally difficult read for the non-scientist, but a worthwhile one.

A short, largely non-technical introduction to the role played by mathematical patterns in the natural world. Interesting enough, but if you're really curious about this fascinating subject, I'd recommend jumping straight to the meatier Life's Other Secret by the same author.

"This book will set you on the road to make a great discovery" - so asserts John D. Barrow in a quote on the cover of this book. And, amazingly, he's right!

In this book, Ian Stewart sets about explaining how mathematical patterns play a vitally important role in the development of life forms - the shapes of protein molecules, the numbers of petals on flowers, and the rhythms a horse's gaits, to name just a few. The central message of the book is that genes are only a starting point for the development of living organisms - maths (with a bit of help from physics) does the rest.

I found this a truly fascinating book. Stewart's style is lucid and accessible, and here is less hampered by intrusive wackiness than that of Does God Play Dice?