What do these animals have in common ?
Yes they live in savanah, they are mammals...
But that's not the point here
What they have in common is their fur
More precisely, the principle that governs it's patterns
Yes they live in savanah, they are mammals...
But that's not the point here
What they have in common is their fur
More precisely, the principle that governs it's patterns
Reaction-diffusion is a mathematical model describing how two components change over time and space due to local reactions and diffusion…
or in simpler terms...
It’s like a recipe using math that predicts the formation of patterns in animal coats
The model explains how those patterns are created with 2 chemicals, an activator and an inhibitor.
Let’s say activators are like fires that are spread in a forest (the fur of the animal), and inhibitors are firefighters who have to extinguish those fires.
Each tree burned by fire is like a spot on an animal’s coat. If the fire spreads faster than firefighters can stop it, the animal will have more spots.
The other way around, if firefighters can extinguish fire faster than they spread, the animal will have smaller spots.
The magic thing with the model, is that we can change the speed of the fires and firefighters to generate differents patterns. (Choose an animal)
The model was first published on 14th August 1952 in an article named
"The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis"
It was only 25 years later when two scientist rediscovered this paper and became general scientific knowledge...
It’s Alan Turing who invented this model.
He was well known for being a key figure in cracking Enigma Machine during WW2.
In science
to explain placement of hair follicles on skin
In fashion
And many more to come...
A scrollytelling made by
Funky Shrimp