Importance
Applying mathematics to biology has a long history, but only recently has there been an explosion of interest in the field. Some reasons for this include:
- the explosion of data-rich information sets, due to the genomics revolution, which are difficult to understand without the use of analytical tools,
- recent development of mathematical tools such as chaos theory to help understand complex, non-linear mechanisms in biology,
- an increase in computing power which enables calculations and simulations to be performed that were not previously possible, and
- an increasing interest in in silico experimentation due to ethical considerations, risk, unreliability and other complications involved in human and animal research.
Read more about this topic: Algebraic Biology
Famous quotes containing the word importance:
“We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“For even satire is a form of sympathy. It is the way our sympathy flows and recoils that really determines our lives. And here lies the vast importance of the novel, properly handled. It can inform and lead into new places our sympathy away in recoil from things gone dead. Therefore the novel, properly handled, can reveal the most secret places of life: for it is the passional secret places of life, above all, that the tide of sensitive awareness needs to ebb and flow, cleansing and freshening.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“A toothache, or a violent passion, is not necessarily diminished by our knowledge of its causes, its character, its importance or insignificance.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)