D'Arcy Thompson

D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860-1948) is said to have been offered, at the age of 23, the choice between being professor of Latin, Theology, Mathematics or Zoology. He chose Zoology, and held chairs for 65 years. Stephen Jay Gould wrote of his main book, On Growth and Form, that it was "the greatest piece of scientific writing of the twentieth century. Consider the judgment of two preeminent scientific humanists: P.B. Medawar called it `beyond comparison the finest work of literature in all the annals of science that have been recorded in the English tongue.' G.E. Hutchison regarded it as `one of the very few books on a scientific matter written in this century which will, one may be confident, last as long as our too fragile culture.'" René Thom often refers to D'Arcy Thompson.

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