Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Branching in Nature: Dynamics and Morphogenesis of Branching Structures, from Cell to River Networks

Branching in Nature: Dynamics and Morphogenesis of Branching Structures, from Cell to River Networks

Fleury, V.
Gouyet, J. -F
Leonetti, Marc

Paperback

Series: Centre de Physique Des Houches, Book 14

General MathematicsGeologyPhysics

ISBN10: 3540418881
ISBN13: 9783540418887
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published: May 3 2001
Pages: 476
Weight: 1.54
Height: 1.05 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.12
Language: English
Branching is probably the most common mode of growth in Nature. From plants to river networks, from lung and kidney to snow-flakes or lightning sparks, branches grow and blossom everywhere, in every realm of Nature. When Galileo Galilei stated that the geometry ofNature was written in terms ofplanes, cones and spheres, he missed one essential pattern of Nature: the tree. However, the tree has been recognized as a scientific objet very early, ever since the classical times. Pliny, Strabo or Theophrastus were weIl aware ofthe existence ofdendrites, i. e., stones in the shape of plants or corals, although the existence of such stones was a puzzle to them. In his book Prodromus Cristallographiae, in which the very word cristallography appears in print for the first time (1711), Mauricius CapeIler, a Swiss naturalist, shows in between facetted crystals, several examples of dendritic crystals. He seemed already to believe in the existence of a general class of branching structures (arbusculatum in modum) in Nature. In the same spirit, his friend Jean-Jacques Scheuchzer had demonstrated experimentally that viscous fingering could generate geological dendrites (1699). At the time of Renaissance, Leornardo da Vinci was quite interested in the resemblance between trees and vessels (1508), and later, Nicola Steno did not hesitate in considering branched deposits of silver found in mines as a close relative of snow.

Also in

General Mathematics

View All