Do Plants Know Math?: Unwinding the Story of Plant Spirals, from Leonardo da Vinci to Now

A breathtakingly illustrated look at botanical spirals and the scientists who puzzled over them

Charles Darwin was driven to distraction by plant spirals, growing so exasperated that he once begged a friend to explain the mystery “if you wish to save me from a miserable death.” The legendary naturalist was hardly alone in feeling tormented by these patterns. Plant spirals captured the gaze of Leonardo da Vinci and became Alan Turing’s final obsession. This book tells the stories of the physi...