Wavelike Activity in Biological and Chemical Media

A variety of room-temperature aqueous solutions colorfully exhibit in two and three dimensions the excitability, signal transmission, and spontaneous oscillation more familiarly associated with biological media such as aggregating slime molds, rhythmic fungi, nerve, heart, and intestinal smooth muscle. I will refer to these chemical solutions collectively as “Z reagent” in honor of their chief developers, A. M. Zhabotinsky and A. N. Zaikin (1970). Because Z reagent is so convenient to prepare and study, it is tempting to employ it as a heuristic tool in seeking consequences of oscillation and excitability which may have escaped attention during technically more difficult experiments in living systems. My belief is that observations on Z reagent suggest at least one unexplored mode of solution to the partial differential equations used to describe excitable media, which may merit the attentions both of mathematicians and of biologists.

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