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TURING (ALAN) 'The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis', offprint from: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences, no. 641, vol. 237, Published for the Royal Society by the Cambridge University Press, [1952] image 1
TURING (ALAN) 'The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis', offprint from: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences, no. 641, vol. 237, Published for the Royal Society by the Cambridge University Press, [1952] image 2
The Turing Papers of Donald Bayley
Lot 47

TURING (ALAN)
'The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis', offprint from: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences, no. 641, vol. 237, Published for the Royal Society by the Cambridge University Press, [1952]

14 November 2023, 14:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

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TURING (ALAN)

'The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis', offprint from: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences, no. 641, vol. 237, 36pp. (numbered 37-72), publisher's brown printed wrappers, slight loss at foot of spine, single spot on lower wrapper, 4to (305 x 205mm.), Published for the Royal Society by the Cambridge University Press, [1952]

Footnotes

SCARCE SEPARATE OFFPRINT OF TURING'S FINAL MAJOR PUBLISHED WORK, "a founding paper of modern non-linear dynamical theory" (Andrew Hodges, ODNB), in which he wrote that "a mathematical model of the growing embryo will be described. This model will be a simplification and an idealisation, and consequently a falsification. It is to be hoped that the features retained for discussion are those of greatest importance in the present state of knowledge". Hodges noted that "Just as the simple idea of the Turing machine had sent him into fields beyond the boundaries of Cambridge mathematics, so now this simple idea in physical chemistry took him into a region of new mathematical problems".

The Royal Society noted, on publication of the paper in their Philosophical Transactions, that "The full understanding of the paper requires a good knowledge of mathematics, some biology, and some elementary chemistry. Since readers cannot be expected to be experts in all of these subjects, a number of elementary facts are explained...", indicative of the deep expertise Turing himself had in these varied fields of study.

The offprint is differentiated from the journal issue by the omission of the price (8 shillings) from the upper wrapper, and first leaf of text.

Provenance: Donald Bayley (1921-2020), electronic engineer and collaborator of Alan Turing on Delilah, a functioning portable speech-encryption system during the Second World War; by descent to the present owner.

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