Manifest Form

"The harmony of the world is
made manifest in Form and Number,
and the heart and soul and all the
poetry of Natural Philosophy are embodied
in the concept of mathematical beauty.

...

Cell and tissue, shell and bone, leaf and flower, are so many portions of matter, and it is in obedience to the laws of physics that their particles have been moved, moulded and confirmed... Their problems of form are in the first instance mathematical problems, their problems of growth are essentially physical problems, and the morphologist is, ipso facto, a student of physical science."

- D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860 - 1948)
On Growth and Form