Talk
Can mathematics provide fundamental contributions to biology? The example of topology
- Harald Jockusch (Entwicklungsbiologie und Molekulare Pathologie, Universität Bielefeld)
Abstract
Contributions of mathematics to biology can be of very different kinds: supportive, as in data analysis (statistics, approximations); challenging, by suggesting quantitative models that can be falsified; inspiring, by suggesting novel qualitative features that remain to be discovered in "real life". I will discuss this topic from the subjective viewpoint of a biologist, using examples from developmental biology and morphogenesis and their interpretation by topology.
