I am reviewing the book 'The Vortex of Life' by the late Lawrence
Edwards (Floris Books, Edinburgh, 2006, 380 pp). It is a presentation of
some 30 years of the author's research in projective geometric
morphometrics which he carried out mostly after he retired from
schoolteaching mathematics. His objects of study were mainly tree leaf
buds, flower buds, pine cones, eggs and mammalian hearts and the
projective geometric form he applied to, or claims to have found in, the
objects is the path curve.
I'm having difficulty placing the book in the context of contemporary
geometric morphometrics as the author makes no reference it. He does not
even mention D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's 'On Growth and Form' which is
the only general book I know of that precedes Edwards' researches. The
only forerunner mentioned is J. Bell Pettigrew and his book 'Design in
Nature' (1908). Most of the rest of the references are connected with
non-Euclidean geometry (Adams, Whicher, Klein, Lie, Locher-Ernst).
Can anyone on the list could help me with the following questions:
1) Are there any books on geometric morphometrics aimed at lay readers
with only a modest grasp of mathematics?
2) Do you know of other work which applies projective of non-Euclidean
geometry to morphometrics?
3) D'Arcy Thompson refers to previous work in the field, often back to
antiquity. Is there a more recent history of the subject available?
Probably the most interesting finding reported in Edwards' book is not
so much that leaf bud forms fit path curves but that the form parameter,
lambda, of these curves fluctuates slightly in a 14-day rhythm up to bud
opening.
David Heaf
Wales, UK
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