Mighty Morphogenesis, or how the fish got its spots | Thomas Woolley | TEDxNewcastle

During his short life Alan Turing revolutionised the fields of logic, computation, mathematics and cryptoanalysis, doing all of this before he was even 42. Here, Thomas will present a celebration of Alan’s work and focus on one of his least well-known theories about the construction of patterns and its applications to biological complexity. This work was so far ahead of its time that it took another 30-40 years before it was fully appreciated and, even today, it is still able to provide new avenues of research.

Starting from an intuitive understanding of his theory Thomas will lead you through 60 years of beauty in terms of mathematics and patterns. Critically, by the end of the talk you should understand why mathematicians love cheetahs, but hate ring tailed lemurs.

Thomas Woolley has been doing mathematics at University of Oxford since 2004 and now specialises in mathematical biology as a Junior Research Fellow at St John’s College. His doctorate focused on the applications of Turing’s patterning theory to biology, but now he researches mathematical models of stem cells movement. The hope is that by understanding how stem cells move we can influence them and, thus, speed up the healing process.

When not doing mathematics he is a keen participant in mathematical outreach workshops and has given a variety of popular maths lectures nationally and internationally. He has previously worked for the BBC, illustrated Marcus du Sautoy’s book and he recently worked on the popular maths show “Dara O’Briains school of hard sums”. He is currently the Fellow of Modern Mathematics at the London Science Museum and is helping redesign their mathematics gallery.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Видео Mighty Morphogenesis, or how the fish got its spots | Thomas Woolley | TEDxNewcastle канала TEDx Talks