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| nationality = Scottish | notableworks = ''On Growth and Form'' | subject = Morphogenesis }} Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson CB FRS FRSE (2 May 1860 – 21 June 1948) was a Scottish biologist, mathematician and classics scholar. He was a pioneer of mathematical biology,〔(University of Dundee : External Relations : Press Office )〕 travelled on collecting expeditions to the Bering Straits and held the position of Professor of Natural History at St Andrews for 31 years. Thompson is mainly remembered as the author of the distinctive 1917 book ''On Growth and Form'', written largely in Dundee in 1915. Peter Medawar, the 1960 Nobel Laureate in Medicine, called it "the finest work of literature in all the annals of science that have been recorded in the English tongue".〔Bretscher, Otto. ''Linear algebra with applications''. 3rd edition. Pearson Education, Inc., 2005. Page 66.〕 The book led the way for the scientific explanation of morphogenesis, the process by which patterns are formed in plants and animals. Thompson recognised, however, that the book was descriptive, and did not present experimental hypotheses. Thompson's description of the mathematical beauty of nature stimulated thinkers as diverse as Alan Turing and Claude Lévi-Strauss; and artists including Henry Moore, Salvador Dalí and Jackson Pollock. The Zoology Museum in Dundee, named for Thompson, displays a collection of artworks inspired by his ideas. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, was knighted, and received the Darwin Medal and the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal. ==Life== Thompson was the son of D'Arcy Thompson (1829–1902), Professor of Greek at Queen's College, Galway.〔 (The latter was probably named for D'Arcy Wentworth (1762–1827) who narrowly escaped conviction on a fourth charge of highway robbery by volunteering for transportation to Botany Bay as an assistant surgeon, arriving in June 1790.) He received his secondary education at the Edinburgh Academy, which he attended from 1870 to 1877, and won the 1st Edinburgh Academical Club Prize in 1877.〔''The Edinburgh Academy Register 1824-1914'', printed by T & A Constable for the Edinburgh Academical Club, 1914. Page 328.〕 In 1878, he matriculated at the University of Edinburgh to study medicine. Two years later, he shifted his studies to Trinity College in the University of Cambridge,〔(Obituary in The Scotman )〕 obtaining the Bachelor of Arts in Natural Science in 1883. In 1884, he was appointed Professor of Biology (later Natural History) at University College, Dundee, a post he held for 32 years. One of his first tasks was to create a Zoology Museum for teaching and research - at the time this was regarded as one of the largest in the country, specialising in Arctic zoology due to his links to the Dundee whalers. In 1896 and 1897, he went on his own epic expeditions to the Bering Straits, representing the British Government in an international inquiry into the fur seal industry. He took the opportunity to collect many valuable specimens for his museum, including a Japanese spider crab (still in the museum today) and the rare skeleton of a Steller's Sea Cow. In 1917, Thompson was appointed to the Chair of Natural History at St Andrews University, remaining there for the last 31 years of his life. He became a well known and much loved figure in the town, walking its streets in gym shoes with a parrot on his shoulder, and contributing a stylish and scholarly essay on St Andrews to Country Life magazine in October 1923. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1916,〔 he was knighted in 1937 and was awarded the Darwin Medal in 1946. For his revised ''On Growth and Form'', he was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1942.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_elliot )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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