D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s On Growth and Form has occupied an important place in biological literature since it was first published in 1917. In it, D’Arcy Thompson analysed biological processes in their mathematical and physical aspects and has also succeeded in producing a work that is, to quote Professor Bonner, ‘good literature as well as good science; it is a discourse on science as though it were a humanity.’
It is a book about the way things grow, and the shapes they take. Here, a great man of science who was also a poet tells of the shape of horns, of teeth, of tusks; of jumping fleas and slipper limpets; of buds and seeds, bees’ cells and drops of rain; of the potter’s thumb and the spider’s web; of cylinders and unduloids; of a film of soap and a bubble of oil; of the splash of a pebble in a pond.
To bring this work to a wider readership, including those who cannot find time to study the complete work of over 1000 pages, Professor Bonner has made this abridgement. By omitting the less essential parts of the book and those which have been rendered out of date by recent research, and some of the large number of examples, it has been possible to present, in D’Arcy Thompson’s own words, the core of the original book.