Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Wallace And Incipient Structures: A World Of "More Recondite" Influences, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

Alfred Russel Wallace is well-known for his co-discovery of the principle of natural selection. Natural selection is usually considered a process, but it is not clear that Wallace regarded it in exactly these terms. In fact he more likely thought of the relationships involved as representing what we would now term a “state space,” a negative feedback loop wherein populations are maintained at healthy levels through elimination of the unfit. Both before and after the advent of natural selection Wallace clung to the idea that “more recondite forces” were shaping the nature and direction of evolution; this is especially evident …

"In Space" Or "As Space"?: A New Model, Charles H. Smith, Megan Derr

DLPS Faculty Publications

In this analysis natural systems are posed to subsystemize in a manner facilitating both structured information/energy sharing and an entropy maximization process projecting a three-dimensional, spatial, outcome. Numerical simulations were first carried out to determine whether n × n input-output matrices could, once entropymaximized, project a three-dimensional Euclidean metric. Only 4 × 4 matrices could; a small proportion passed the test. Larger proportions passed when grouped random patterns on and within two- and three-dimensional forms were tested. Topographical patterns within 31 stream basin systems in the state of Kentucky, USA, were then similarly investigated, anticipating that the spatial configuration of …

Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists And Ecologists: Chrono-Biographical Sketches, Charles H. Smith, Joshua Woleben, Carubie Rodgers

DLPS Faculty Publications

Each name in the following list of naturalists is linked to a corresponding capsule "chrono-biographical" sketch of that individual prepared by the authors. Coverage extends from approximately 1950 backward in time as far as the eighteenth century; figures from all over the world are included (though there is admittedly a decided Anglo-American bias). The target subject here is biogeography, but this being a broad field there are many persons on the list who are better known as climatologists, zoologists, botanists, ecologists, oceanographers, paleontologists, etc.--in other words, who made their main reputations in cognate disciplines.

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Profiles In Science For Science Librarians: "What Lives Where, And Why": Alfred Russel Wallace, And The Field Of Biogeography, Charles H. Smith

DLPS Faculty Publications

Biogeography, the study of animal and plant distribution, has a history extending back to at least the eighteenth century. But it was not until the work of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the mid-nineteenth century that it really came into its own as a science. Darwin’s importance notwithstanding, it was really Wallace who put the field on the map, and many of today’s research threads can be traced back to his influence. This article provides a summary review of Wallace’s life and work and biogeography as a field of study, including Wallace’s role in its development.