From owner-biophys@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Sat Oct 7 20:32:29 2000 Return-Path: Received: by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix, from userid 110) id CB9A317B61; Sat, 7 Oct 2000 20:32:28 +0100 (BST) Received: by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix, from userid 6024) id A04DC17B5D; Sat, 7 Oct 2000 20:32:27 +0100 (BST) Received: from niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (niobium [193.62.192.41]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 87B38415DA for ; Sat, 7 Oct 2000 20:32:26 +0100 (BST) Received: (from news@localhost) by niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (8.9.3+Sun/8.8.8) id UAA06333 for biophys-list@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk; Sat, 7 Oct 2000 20:32:25 +0100 (BST) X-Authentication-Warning: niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk: news set sender to using -f From: peterlin@biofiz.mf.uni-lj.si (Primoz Peterlin) X-Newsgroups: bionet.biophysics Subject: Re: math question about seashell Date: 7 Oct 2000 20:32:24 +0100 Organization: BIOSCI/MRC Human Genome Mapping Project Resource Centre Lines: 32 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-2 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT X-Trace: niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk 970947145 6331 193.62.192.80 (7 Oct 2000 19:32:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@net.bio.net X-Received: by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix, from userid 6024) id AF43517B5D; Sat, 7 Oct 2000 20:32:23 +0100 (BST) X-Received: from sizif.mf.uni-lj.si (sizif.mf.uni-lj.si [193.2.69.15]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 707A9415DA for ; Sat, 7 Oct 2000 20:32:22 +0100 (BST) X-Received: from localhost (peterlin@localhost) by sizif.mf.uni-lj.si (8.8.6 (PHNE_17135)/8.8.6) with ESMTP id VAA22715; Sat, 7 Oct 2000 21:32:17 +0200 (METDST) X-Sender: peterlin@sizif.mf.uni-lj.si X-To: Sally Porter X-Cc: biophys@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk X-In-Reply-To: To: biophys@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Sender: owner-biophys@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Precedence: bulk On Sat, 7 Oct 2000, Sally Porter wrote: > I am a painter who is interested in the mathematical identities found in > nature, such as the Fibonacci sequence, the golden ratio, the logarithmic > spiral, pi, e, etcetera. In general, I am interested in how the patterns > and forms of nature are related to a hidden mathematical order and, more > specifically, the formulas containing these mathematical identities > describing specific relationships. If you can recommend any sites or > newsgroups on this subject, I would appreciate it. ... Sally, You might enjoy D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's "On growth and form". It was first published in 1917 and therefore predates fractals for some six decades, but may be very close to what you seem to want. There exists an inexpensive Dover paperback reprint (ISBN 0486671356) and Canto abridged paperback edition (ISBN 0521437768). As for fractals, there are many popular science books, for example Fractals Everywhere by Barnsley (ISBN 0120790696) or Chaos and Fractals by Peitgen and coworkers (ISBN 0387979034). Best regards, Primoz -- Primož Peterlin, Inštitut za biofiziko, Med. fakulteta, Univerza v Ljubljani Lipičeva 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija. primoz.peterlin@biofiz.mf.uni-lj.si Tel: +386-1-5437632, fax: +386-1-4315127, http://sizif.mf.uni-lj.si/~peterlin/ --- .