Further studies on the physical aspects of cellular growth and multiplication

Summary In continuation of a previous study, the conditions, under which a drop will divide spontaneously due to the production of capillary active substances, are investigated in more details, and illustrated by a numerical example.Spontaneous division of drops, consisting of several phases is investigated, and a theory of indirect division suggested.It is shown that due to the requirements of thermodynamical equilibrium, the geometrical arrangement of various phases in a cell or drop may be generally completely determined.In a drop, which consists of several phases, enveloping each other, those phases, which possess the property of regenerating both themselves and the other phases, will lie centrally.It is shown that under certain conditions, which can be specified mathematically, whenever a polyphase drop divides spontaneously, various phases tend to be evenly distributed amongst the daughterdrops. Whenever this is the case, arrangemants of some of the phases in the equatorial plane of the dividing drop results from general requirements of equilibrium.