On Growth and Form Centenary Conference

100 years on and still growing!

 2017 marks 100 years since the publication of D’Arcy Thompson’s landmark book On Growth and Form – “the greatest work of prose in twentieth century science” (Stephen Jay Gould), written by possibly “the most learned polymath of all time” (Richard Dawkins).

One of the key works at the intersection of science and the imagination, it is a book that has inspired scientists, artists and thinkers as diverse as Alan Turing, C H Waddington, Claude Lévi Strauss, Norbert Wiener, Henry Moore and Mies van der Rohe. It pioneered the science of biomathematics, and has had a profound influence in art, architecture, anthropology, geography, cybernetics and many other fields.

To mark the occasion, a three-day interdisciplinary conference is being organised at the Universities of Dundee and St Andrews, where D’Arcy spent most of his career and where his surviving collections are held.

The full programme is now available including details of registration rates. Early Bird booking closes 31 August.

As part of the conference, Evelyn Fox Keller will give the first BSHM Fauvel Lecture - a free public lecture open to all, even if you are not attending the full conference.