This is tedious to do by hand. Yet, Turing points out, it is a task for which computers are ideally suited. So, as the Manchester University machines grew more powerful, Turing started writing programs that searched for solutions to the equations describing morphogen diffusion so that he could investigate the patterns that might form. “Our new machine is to start arriving on Monday. I am hoping as one of the first jobs to do something about ‘chemical embryology,’ ” he wrote with great excitement to a friend in 1951.
