Biography:Nicolas Rashevsky

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Nicolas Rashevsky
Born(1899-11-09)November 9, 1899
Chernigov, Russian Empire (now Chernihiv, Ukraine)
DiedJanuary 16, 1972(1972-01-16) (aged 72)
Holland, Michigan, United States
NationalityUkrainian American
Alma materSt. Vladimir Imperial University of Kiev, University of Chicago
Scientific career
FieldsTheoretical physics, Mathematical biology
InstitutionsUniversity of Chicago, University of Michigan
Notable studentsGeorge Karreman, Robert Rosen, Clyde Coombs, Anatol Rapoport, Herbert A. Simon

Nicolas Rashevsky (November 9, 1899 – January 16, 1972) was an American theoretical physicist who was one of the pioneers of mathematical biology, and is also considered the father of mathematical biophysics and theoretical biology.[1][2][3][4]

Academic career

In USA he worked at first for the Westinghouse Research Labs in Pittsburgh where he focused on the theoretical physics modeling of the cell division and the mathematics of cell fission.

He was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1934 and went to the University of Chicago to take up the appointment of assistant professor in the department of physiology. In 1938, inspired by reading On Growth and Form (1917) by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, he made his first major contribution by publishing his first book on Mathematical Biophysics, and then in 1939 he also founded the first mathematical biology international journal entitled The Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics (BMB); these two essential contributions founded the field of mathematical biology, with the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology serving as the focus of contributing mathematical biologists over the last 70 years. During the late 1930s, Rashevsky's research group was producing papers that had difficulty publishing in other journals at the time, so Rashevsky decided to found a new journal exclusively devoted to mathematical biophysics. In January 1939, he approached the editor of the journal Psychometrika, L.L. Thurstone, and formed an agreement that the new journal, the BMB, would be published as a supplement to their quarterly issues.[5]

Major scientific contributions

In the same year he established the World' s first PhD program in mathematical biology at the University of Chicago.

In the early 1930s, Rashevsky developed the first model of neural networks.[6][7][8] This was paraphrased in a Boolean context by his student Walter Pitts together with Warren McCulloch, in A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity, published in Rashevsky's Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics in 1943.[9] The Pitts-McCulloch article subsequently became extremely influential for research on artificial intelligence and artificial neural networks.[10]

His later efforts focused on the topology of biological systems, the formulation of fundamental principles in biology, relational biology, set theory and propositional logic formulation of the hierarchical organization of organisms and human societies. In the second half of the 1960s, he introduced the concept of "organismic sets" that provided a unified framework for physics, biology and sociology. This was subsequently developed by other authors as organismic supercategories and Complex Systems Biology.

Rashevsky's most notable students

Administrative and political obstacles

However, his more advanced ideas and abstract relational biology concepts found little support in the beginning amongst practicing experimental or molecular biologists,

In 1954 the budget for his Committee of Mathematical Biology was drastically cut; however, this was at least in part politically imposed, rather than scientifically, motivated. Thus, the subsequent University of Chicago administration—notably represented by the genetics Nobel laureate George Wells Beadle— who reversed in the 1960s the previous position and quadrupled the financial support for Rashevsky's Committee for Mathematical Biology research activities ("Reminiscences of Nicolas Rashevsky." by Robert Rosen, written in late 1972).


Formation of Mathematical Biology, Inc.

Final quest for principles of biology

Biography

Works

  • Physico-mathematical aspects of Excitation and Conduction in Nerves., Cold Springs Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology.IV: Excitation Phenomena., 1936, p.90.
  • Mathematical Biophysics:Physico-Mathematical Foundations of Biology. Univ. of Chicago Press. : Chicago Press, 1938/1948 (2nd ed.).
  • Mathematical Theory of Human Relations: An Approach to Mathematical Biology of Social Phenomena. Bloomington, ID: Principia Press, 1947/1949 (2nd ed.)
  • Topology and life: In search of general mathematical principles in biology and sociology. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 16 (1954): 317–348.
  • Proceedings of the International School of Physics "Enrico Fermi", Course 16, Physico-Mathematical Aspects of Biology. : Academic Press, 1964
  • Some Medical Aspects of Mathematical Biology. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1964
  • The Representation of Organisms in Terms of Predicates, Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 27 (1965): 477–491.
  • Outline of a Unified Approach to Physics, Biology and Sociology., Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 31 (1969): 159–198.
  • Looking at History through Mathematics, 1972
  • Organismic Sets., William Clowes & Sons., London, Beccles and Cochester, 1972.

Notes and references

This article incorporates material from Nicolas Rashevsky on PlanetMath, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. The article also incorporates additional data from planetphysics.org[Usurped!]; furthermore, both external entries are original, contributed objects in the public domain.

  1. ↑ "A Brief History of Mathematical Biology". 2006-09-01. http://www1.appstate.edu/~marland/math_bio/Sunday_intro.ppt. 
  2. ↑ http://www.smb.org/ The Society for Mathematical Biology
  3. ↑ Robert Rosen Essays on Life (2004)
  4. ↑ Evelyn Fox Keller Making Sense of Life pp. 82-89
  5. ↑ Abraham, Tara H. (2004). "Nicolas Rashevsky's Mathematical Biophysics" (in en). Journal of the History of Biology 37 (2): 333–385. doi:10.1023/B:HIST.0000038267.09413.0d. ISSN 0022-5010. http://link.springer.com/10.1023/B:HIST.0000038267.09413.0d. 
  6. ↑ Abraham, Tara H. (2002). "(Physio)logical circuits: The intellectual origins of the McCulloch-Pitts neural networks" (in en). Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 38 (1): 3–25. doi:10.1002/jhbs.1094. ISSN 0022-5061. PMID 11835218. 
  7. ↑ Rashevsky, Nicolas (1936). "Mathematical biophysics and psychology". Psychometrika 1: 1–26. doi:10.1007/BF02287920. 
  8. ↑ Rashevsky, Nicolas (1938). Mathematical Biophysics: Physicomathematical Foundations Of Biology. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9781258398682. 
  9. ↑ McCulloch, W.S., and W. Pitts (1943) A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity. Bull. Math. Biophys. 5, 115-133.
  10. ↑ Rosen, Robert (2000) Essays on Life Itself. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 120-1.

Further reading

  • Abraham, Tara H. (2004). "Nicolas Rashevsky's Mathematical Biophysics". Journal of the History of Biology (Springer Science and Business Media LLC) 37 (2): 333–385. doi:10.1023/b:hist.0000038267.09413.0d. ISSN 0022-5010. 
  • Bartholomay, A. F., G. Karreman and H. D. Landahl (1972). "Obituary of Nicolas Rashevsky.", Bull. Math. Biophys. 34.
  • Rosen, Robert. 1972. Tribute to Nicolas Rashevsky 1899–1972. Progress in Theoretical Biology 2.
  • Tara H. Abraham. 2004. Journal of the History of Biology, 37: 333–385.[1]
  • Rosen Robert. 1972. "Reminiscences of Nicolas Rashevsky", unpublished paper.
  • Rosen, Robert. 1958. The representation of biological systems from the standpoint of the theory of categories. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 20: 317–341.
  • Natural Transformations of Organismic Structures., Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, 42: 431–446, Baianu, I.C.: 1980.
  • Elsasser, M.W.: 1981, A Form of Logic Suited for Biology., In: Robert, Rosen, ed., Progress in Theoretical Biology, Volume 6, Academic Press, New York and London, pp 23–62.
  • Rosen, Robert. 1985. The physics of complexity. Systems Research 2: 171–175.
  • Rosen, Robert. 1985. Organisms as causal systems which are not mechanisms. In R. Rosen, Theoretical Biology and Complexity, 165–203.
  • Rosen, Robert. 1979. Biology and system theory: An overview. In Klir, Proceedings of the System Theory Conference — Applied General Systems Research,
  • Rosen, Robert. 1977. Complexity as a system property. International Journal of General Systems 3: 227–232.
  • Rosen, Robert. 1977. Complexity and system description. In Hartnett, Systems, 169–175.
  • Rosen, R. 1973. A unified approach to physics, biology, and sociology. In Rosen, Foundations of Mathematical Biology, 177–190.
  • Rosen, R. 1972.Quantum genetics. In R. Rosen, Foundations of Mathematical Biology, 215–252.
  • Rosen, R. 1972. Morphogenesis. In Rosen, Foundations of Mathematical Biology, 1–77.
  • Rosen, R. 1972. Mechanics of epigenetic control. In R. Rosen, Foundations of Mathematical Biology, 79–140.



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