The Algorithmic Beauty of Sea Shells

• Main Author: Meinhardt, Hans (Author)
• Corporate Author: SpringerLink (Online service)
• Format: Electronic eBook
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin, Heidelberg : Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2009.
• Series: The Virtual Laboratory,
• Subjects: Life sciences.; Fine arts.; Computer graphics.; Bioinformatics.; Computational biology.; Evolutionary biology.; Zoology.; Life Sciences.; Evolutionary Biology.; Fine Arts.; Life Sciences, general.; Computer Appl. in Life Sciences.; Computer Graphics.

The patterns on the shells of tropical sea snails are not only compellingly beautiful but also tell a tale of biological development. The decorative patterns are records of their own genesis, which follows laws like those of dune formation or the spread of a flu epidemic. Hans Meinhardt has analyzed...

Table of Contents:

• Shell patterns - a natural picture book to study dynamic systems and biological pattern formation
• Pattern formation by local self-enhancement and long range inhibition
• Oscillations and traveling waves
• Superposition of stable and periodic patterns
• Crossings, meshwork of oblique lines and staggered dots: the combined action of two antagonists
• Branch initiation by global control
• The big problem: two or more time-dependent patterns that interfere with each other
• Triangles
• Parallel lines with tongues
• Shell models in three dimensions
• The computer programs
• Pattern formation in the development of higher organisms
• Pattern formation in development in which shell-related mechanisms are implicated.