Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's House

Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's House

Mathematics,Natural History

Sir D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson II (1860 – 1948) was a zoologist considered by some as the "father of mathematical biology". He was born in Edinburgh on May 2, 1860 and died on June 21, 1948 at his house in St Andrews. His professorship at the University College of Dundee, and then at St Andrews holds the record for the longest tenure of any academic (64 yrs.) and is unlikely to be broken due to modern employment legislation. Most consider Thompson’s greatest work to be On Growth and Form, a book in which he explores in great detail the mathematical patterns that can be found in nature. His use of Cartesian grid transformations in modelling evolutionary processes is still an area of modern research. Thompson’s influence has been wide-reaching: from inspiring the likes of Alan Turing’s morphology research to playing a key role in the development of 3D animation.

To see more information on the work and impact of Sir Thompson, click here.

mathematicalycurious

jb402@st-andrews.ac.uk

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44 South Street, St Andrews KY169JT

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