No label defined (Q4023938)

Morphogenesis was the last theme in Turing's fruitful life. His article ``The chemical basis of morphogenesis'', Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., B 237, 37-72 (1952), demonstrates that in growing systems with reaction and diffusion the homogeneous state loses its stability when a critical size is attained. This is essentially a linear theory, but nonlinear problems are considered too, and there is even a computer simulation. Naturally, this founding article is the first in the present volume. Then there is ``A diffusion reaction theory of morphogenesis in plants'' (with \textit{C. W. Wardlaw}) explaining the theory in nontechnical terms. Then comes Turing's major unfinished and yet unpublished work ``Morphogen theory of phylotaxis''. It contains first a geometrical description of phylotactic patterns and then an application of reaction-diffusion theory to them. This is based on linear diffusion operators acting on cylinder and sphere. Finally, an incomplete ``Outline of development of the daisy'' gives us an idea how Turing meant to proceed. The unpublished material shows that Turing anticipated much of the subsequent development of the theory.