Forced Movements, Tropisms, and Animal Conduct (Classic Reprint) - Couverture souple

Jacques Loeb

 
9781440083167: Forced Movements, Tropisms, and Animal Conduct (Classic Reprint)

Synopsis

Explore how physics and chemistry drive motion in the living world—down to the tiniest cells and up through complex organisms.

This book presents a quantitative view of animal movement, showing that what looks like willful action is a response to internal and external physical forces. From light and gravity to chemical impulses, the text explains how tropisms and forced movements shape behavior in a clear, evidence-based way.

  • Learn how symmetry and differences in illumination can steer movement
  • See how geotropism, heliotropism, chemotropism, and other tropisms are explained by mass action and growth
  • Discover experimental methods that link nervous signals, muscle tension, and movement
  • Explore how simple organisms inform our understanding of motion in higher animals
Ideal for curious readers of science and biology who want a rigorous, approachable look at the physical bases of animal conduct and movement.

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Présentation de l'éditeur

FORCED MOVEMENTS, TROPISMS, AND ANIMAL CONDUCT
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The analysis of the mechanism of voluntary and instinctive actions of animals which we propose to undertake in this volume is based on the assumption that all these motions are determined by internal or external forces. Our task is facilitated by the fact that the overwhelming majority of organisms have a bilaterally symmetrical structure, i.e., their body is like our own, divided into a right and left half.
The significance of this symmetrical structure lies in the fact that the morphological plane of symmetry of an animal is also its plane of symmetry in physiological or dynamical respect, inasmuch as under normal conditions the tension in symmetrical muscles is the same, and inasmuch as the chemical constitution and the velocity of chemical reactions are the same for symmetrical elements of the surface of the body, e.g., the sense organs.
Normally the processes inducing locomotion are equal in both halves of

Table of Contents

CONTENTS; chapter r*«*; I introduction 13; II The Symmetry Relation's of the Animal Body as the Starting Point for the Theory of Animal Conduct 19; III Forced Movements 24; IV Galvanotropism 32; V Heliotropism The Influence of One Socrce of Light 47; 1 General Facts A"<; 2 Direct Proof of the Muscle Tension Theory of Heliolrop-; ism in Motile Animals 52; 3 Heliotropism of Unicellular Organisms 62; 4 Heliotropism of Sessile Animals C3; VI An Artificial Heljotropic Machine 08; VII Asymmetrical Animals 70; VIII Two Soorces of Light of Dipperent Intensity 75; IX The Validity of the Bunsen-Roscor Law for the Helio-; tropic Reactions of Animals and Plants 83; X The Effect of Rapid Chances in Intensity of Lioht 95; XI The Relative Hemotropic Efficiency of Light of Differ-; ent

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