Symmorphosis: On Form and Function in Shaping Life
Language: English
Published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2000
- First Edition
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: Underground Books, ABAA, Indianapolis, IN, U.S.A.Underground Books, ABAA
AbeBooks seller since September 1, 2011
Condition: Used - Good
£ 15.38
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
First Edition. Hardcover. 9 1/2" X 6 1/4". xiii, 261pp. Mild rubbing and shelf wear to covers, corners, and edges of unclipped dust jacket. Gentle bumps to corners and edges of brown cloth over boards. Pages are clean and unmarked. Binding is firm and sound. ABOUT THIS BOOK: This book addresses a simple question: Are animals designed economically? The pronghorn can run at speeds of up to 60 kilometers an hour and can maintain this speed for nearly a full hour. Clearly, the form of this elegant animal is beautifully matched to the function it needs to perform. This is symmorphosis. The theory of symmorphosis predicts that the size of the parts in a system must be matched to the overall functional demand. Moreover, it predicts that animals must provide their complex systems with a functional capacity that can cope with the highest expected functional demands, possibly including some safety margin to prevent the system from failing when it is overloaded. In Symmorphosis, Ewald Weibel tests these predictions by working out the quantitative relations between form and function. Physiologists will value this book because Weibel shows them that morphological information can be as quantitative as physiological data. Anatomists will value the book for its demonstration that advanced integrative physiology crucially depends on adequate but rigorously quantitative and testable information on structural design. Finally, anyone interested in the origins of the diverse forms of animals will be fascinated by Weibel's demonstrations that show how animals as different as shrews, pronghorns, dogs, goats--even humans--all develop from essentially the same blueprint by variation of design. This is a hidden beauty of the animal kingdom, which can be uncovered by a rigorous investigation of the quantitative relations of form and function.(Publisher).…
Seller Inventory # 13041
- Title
- Symmorphosis: On Form and Function in Shaping Life
- Author
- Weibel, Ewald R.
- Publisher
- Harvard University Press, Cambridge
- Publication year
- 2000
- Condition
- Good +
- Dust jacket
- Good +
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0674000684
- ISBN 13
- 9780674000681
- Edition
- First Edition.
- Seller catalogs
- Science & Nature
This book addresses a simple question: Are animals designed economically? The pronghorn can run at speeds of up to 60 kilometers an hour and can maintain this speed for nearly a full hour. Clearly, the form of this elegant animal is beautifully matched to the function it needs to perform.
This is symmorphosis. The theory of symmorphosis predicts that the size of the parts in a system must be matched to the overall functional demand. Moreover, it predicts that animals must provide their complex systems with a functional capacity that can cope with the highest expected functional demands, possibly including some safety margin to prevent the system from failing when it is overloaded. In Symmorphosis, Ewald Weibel tests these predictions by working out the quantitative relations between form and function.
Physiologists will value this book because Weibel shows them that morphological information can be as quantitative as physiological data. Anatomists will value the book for its demonstration that advanced integrative physiology crucially depends on adequate but rigorously quantitative and testable information on structural design. Finally, anyone interested in the origins of the diverse forms of animals will be fascinated by Weibel's demonstrations that show how animals as different as shrews, pronghorns, dogs, goats--even humans--all develop from essentially the same blueprint by variation of design. This is a hidden beauty of the animal kingdom, which can be uncovered by a rigorous investigation of the quantitative relations of form and function.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Underground Books, ABAA
Indianapolis, IN, U.S.A.
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Underground Books, ABAA is an online rare and antiquarian bookshop, founded in 2011 as a brick and mortar general bookstore of the same name in downtown Carrollton, Georgia, which is now operated by out former store manager as The Underground Bookshop. Co-owners Josh Niesse and Megan Bell met in 2011, just 10 days or so after Josh opened the doors of Underground Books, literally underground, several steps below street level in a 100-year-old basement in our historic downtown. Megan, an English student at the University of West Georgia, walked in, fell down the rabbit hole, and never left! Reader, we married in May of 2014, under the book arch that now resides at the bookshop. We are both proud alumni of the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS), and Megan additionally of Rare Book School at the University of Virginia and of the ABAA Women’s Initiative Mentorship Program. Like many booksellers with open brick-and-mortar stores, we are passionate generalists, but our specialties are in decorative publisher's cloth bindings; fairy tales, folklore, and mythology; popular science and natural history; the occult; and fine press books.…
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academic out of print, modern firsts, signed modern firsts, decorative publisher's cloth bindings, fairy tales, folklore, and mythology, popular science and natural history, the occult, fine press booksAssociation member
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Underground Books, ABAA
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