1

UNIT I. MATHEMATICS IN OUR WORLD

by Gian Carlo S. Gaetos

Overview
Mathematics is the study of the relationships among numbers, quantities, and shapes. It includes arithmetic,
algebra, trigonometry, geometry, statistics, and calculus. Mathematics nurtures human characteristics like the power of
creativity, reasoning, critical thinking, and others. It provides the opportunity to solve simple and complex problems in
many real-world contexts using various strategies. Mathematics is a universal way to make sense of the world and
communicate the understanding of concepts and rules using mathematical symbols, signs, proofs, language, and
conventions. Mathematics helps organize patterns and regularities in the world. The geometry of most patterns in nature
can be associated directly or indirectly to mathematical numbers. Mathematics helps predict the behavior of nature and
phenomena in the world. It helps control nature and occurrences in the world for the good of mankind. Because of its
numerous applications, mathematics becomes indispensable. Mathematics, being a science of patterns, helps students
utilize, recognize, and generalize patterns that exist in numbers, shapes, and the world around them. Students with such
skills are better problem solvers and have a better sense and appreciation of nature and the world. Hence, they should
have opportunities to analyze, synthesize, and create a variety of patterns and to use pattern-based thinking to
understand and represent mathematical and other real-world phenomena. These explorations present unlimited
opportunities for problem-solving, verifying generalizations, and building mathematical and scientific competence.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this lesson, you are expected to:

1. Identify patters in nature and regularities in the world;
2. Articulate the importance of mathematics in one’s life;
3. Argue about the nature of mathematics, what it is, how it is expressed, represented and used; and
4. Express appreciation for mathematics as a human endeavour.

Setting Up (Unit 1)

Name: _______________________________________________________Score: ___________________________/25

Course/Year/Section: ___________________________________________ Date: _______________________________

Look around. Do you see trees? How about other plants and animals? What is the weather today? Do you see
clouds? Draw/capture and paste specific field of view outside of your room or home and tell or name all the pattern/s that
you can see. Tell something about the pattern you observe. Present at least three but not more than five observations.
 2
Lesson Proper

Patterns in Nature

Pattern that you can see in nature are visible regularities or form found in the natural world. These patters persist
in different contexts and can sometimes be demonstrated mathematically. These include symmetries, trees, spirals,
meanders, waves, foams, tessellations, cracks and stripes1.
Living things like plants and animals such as orchids, hummingbirds and peacock’s tail have abstract designs with
a beauty of form, pattern and color that artists struggle to match2. The beauty that people perceive in nature has causes at
different levels notably in he mathematics that governs what patters can physically form, and among living things in the
effects of natural selection, that govern how patterns evolve.
Mathematics seeks to discover and explain abstract patterns or regularities of all kinds3. Visual patterns in nature
find explanations in chaos theory, fractals, logarithmic spirals, topology and other mathematical patterns. In Biology,
natural selection can cause the development of patterns in living things for several reasons, including camouflage4, sexual
selection and different signaling, including mimicry and cleaning symbiosis. In plants, the shapes, colors and patterns of
insect-pollinated flowers like the gumamela (Hibiscus rosasinensis Linn.) have evolved to attract insects such as bees.
Radial patterns of colors and stripes, some visible only in ultraviolet rays serve as nectar guides that can be seen at a
distance5.

Types of Pattern

Symmetry

Symmetry is general in all living organisms. Animals mainly have bilateral or mirror symmetry, as do the
leaves of the plants and some flowers such as orchids6. Plants often have radial or rotational symmetry, as do
many flowers and some groups of animals such as sea anemones. Fivefold- symmetry is found in echinoderms,
the group that includes starfish, sea urchins and sea lilies 7.
Among non-living things, snowflakes have striking six-fold symmetry. Each flake’s structure forms a
record of the varying conditions during its crystallization, with nearly the same patter of growth on each of its six
arms 8.

Figure 1. Five-fold symmetry of an echinoderm

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish

Figure 2. Radial or rotational symmetry of a cactus

Source: https://www.pinterest.ph/pin/29414203785745129/
 3

Figure 3. Six-fold symmetry of a snowflake

Source: Mariia Tagirova/Shutterstock

Trees, fractals

Fractals are infinitely self-similar, iterated mathematical constructs having fractal dimension9. For
example, the leaves of ferns and umbellifers (Apiaceae) are only self-similar (pinnate) to 2, 3 or 4 leaves.
Fern-like growth patterns occur in plants and in animals including bryozoan, corals, hydrozoa, and others.
Fractal-like patterns occur widely in nature, in phenomena as diverse as clouds, river networks, fault lines,
mountains, coastlines, animal coloration, snow flakes, crystals, blood vessel branching, actin
cytoskeleton, and ocean waves10.

Figure 4. Romanesco Broccoli exemplifying fractal pattern

Source: https://www.growseed.co.uk/cauliflower-seeds/romanesco-cauliflower.html

Figure 5. Clover leaf

Source: https://www.amazon.com/slp/clover-leaf-plant/s2683d3kprrr3u9
 4
Spirals

Spiral symmetry is also largely present in nature. To name a few, we find spirals in sunflowers,
nautilus shells, snail shells, and weather patterns. A spiral is formed because of a property of growth
known as self-similarity, which means that the same shape is maintained as the creature grows.

Figure 6. Nautilus shell

Source: https://www.netclipart.com/isee/ibmRbbx_nautilus-shell-transparent-background/

Figure 7. Sunflower
Source: https://www.treehugger.com/nature-blows-my-mind-hypnotic-patterns-sunflowers-4859272

Chaos, meanders, flow

Chaos, meanders and flow have simple patterns in nature with a chaotic behavior, whirling
patterns and the like. Meanders are sinuous bends in rivers or other channels, which form a fluid, most
often water, flows around bends. As soon as the path is slightly curved, the size of the curvature of each
loop increases as helical flow drags material like sand and gravel across the river to the inside of the
bend.

Figure 8. Textile Cone

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Textile_cone_(cropped).JPG

Figure 9. Brain coral (Diplora strigosa)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Diplora_strigosa_(Symmetrical_Brain_Coral)_closeup.jpg
 5
Wave, dunes

Waves are disturbances that carry energy as they move. As waves in water or wind pass over
sand, they create patters of ripples. When winds blow over large bodies of sand, they create dunes.

Figure 10. Boelge stor (Waves)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boelge_stor.jpg

Figure 11. Afghanistan (Sistan) Wind Riffles (Dunes)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1969_Afghanistan_(Sistan)_wind_ripples.tiff

Bubbles, foam

A soap bubble forms a sphere, a surface with minimal area – the smallest possible surface area
for the volume enclosed. Foam is a mass of bubbles; foams of different materials occur in nature. At the
scale of living cells, foam patterns are common; radiolarians, sponge spicules, silicoflagellate
exoskeletons and calcite skeleton of a sea urchin.

Figure 12. Bubbles

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Equal_spheres_in_a_plane.tif

Figure 13. Foam

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Foam_-_big.jpg
 6

Tessellations

Tessellations (repeating tile patterns or tilling) is a pattern made up of one or more geometric
shapes joined together without overlapping or forming any gaps to cover a plane. The spots on giraffe’s
body also exhibit a tessellation. Naturally occurring tessellations can also be found in snake’s skin, turtle’s
shell, lizard’s scales, dragonfly’s wings, spots of a tiger, and so on.

Figure 14. Honeycomb

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kin_selection,_Honey_bees.jpg

Figure 15. Fritillaria meleagris blomst

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fritillaria-meleagris-blomst.JPG

Cracks

Cracks are linear openings that form in materials to relieve stress. When an elastic material
stretches or shrinks uniformly, it eventually reaches its breaking strength and then fails suddenly in all
directions, creating cracks with 120 degrees joints, so three cracks meet at a node. The pattern of cracks
indicates whether the material is elastic or not.

Figure 16. Cracked earth in the Rann of Kutch

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cracked_earth_in_the_Rann_of_Kutch.jpg
 7

Figure 17. Palm tree bark pattern

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Palm_tree_bark_pattern.jpg

Spots, stripes

Leopards and ladybirds are spotted; anglefish and zebras are striped. These patterns have an
evolutionary explanation: they have functions, which increase the chance that the offspring of the
patterned animal will survive to reproduce. One function of animal pattern is camouflaging, for example, a
leopard that us harder to see catches more prey. Another function is signaling – for instance, a ladybird is
less likely to be attacked by predatory birds that hunt by sight, if it has bold warning colors, and is also
distastefully bitter or poisonous, or mimics other distasteful insects.

Figure 18. Leopard

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leopard_africa.jpg

Figure 19. Cropped Photograph of Array of Ladybirds by G. G. Jacobson

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jacobs24.jpg

Numbers in Nature

We have seen that patterns are everywhere in nature. But do you know that some of these patterns can be
explained mathematically? Yes, there is a link between mathematics and some patterns found in nature. The Fibonacci
sequence, for example, appears very often in flowers, such as in the number of petals, the arrangement of seeds, or in
the arrangement of leaves around a stem.
Below are sunflower seed pattern. You can easily spot two families of spirals, one running counter-clockwise and
one running clockwise direction. The number of spirals is 34 and 55, respectively. Some sunflowers have 21 and 24
spirals; some have 55 and 89 or 89 and 144 depending on the species. Notice that such a pair of number of spirals
actually forms two consecutive numbers of the Fibonacci sequence.
 8

Figure20. Sunflower Head Pattern with Counter-clockwise Spirals

Source: https://momath.org/home/fibonacci-numbers-of-sunflower-seed-spirals/

Figure 21. Sunflower Head Pattern with Clockwise Spirals

Source: https://momath.org/home/fibonacci-numbers-of-sunflower-seed-spirals/

Another example in which we can find Fibonacci numbers in nature is in the number of petals different flowers
have. Some lilies and iris have three petals, gumamela and calachuchi have five, some variety of sampaguita has eight,
corn marigolds have 11, and some daisies have 34, 55 or even 89 petals. Fibonacci numbers also appear in the
arrangement of leaves and branches in some plants.
Nature is full of shapes and patterns. Look closely to things around you such as flowers, trees, animals, rocks,
rivers, etc. Try to search for patterns so that you may be able to find mathematical correlations to this.

The Golden Ratio and the Fibonacci Numbers

Leonardo Pisano Bogollo lived between 1170 and 1250 in Italy. His nickname, “Fibonacci” roughly means “Son of
Bonacci” (Fibonacci Sequence, 2016).

Aside from being famous for the Fibonacci Sequence, he also helped spread Hindu Arabic Numerals (0, 1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, 8 and 9) through Europe in place of Roman numerals (I, II, III, IV, V, etc.). Fibonacci Day is November 23, as it has
the digits “1, 1, 2, 3” which is part of the sequence, which he developed. This famous Fibonacci sequence has fascinated
mathematicians, artists, designers, and scientists for centuries. Also recognized as the Golden Ratio, the Fibonacci
sequence goes like this:

0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 …

What is the value of the next Fibonacci Number?

Example: Fib (n) = x ; Fib (2) = the 2nd Fibonacci Number, thus Fib (2) = 1.
Another example: Fib (7) = 8 ; Fib (12) = 89 ; Fib (1) = 0

Each number in the sequence is the sum of the two numbers, which precede it. The ratio of any two successive
Fibonacci numbers is very close to the Golden Ratio, referred to and represented as phi (ϕ) which is approximately equal
to 1.618034… . The bigger the pair of Fibonacci numbers considered, the closer is the approximation.

A B B/A = ϕ
2 3 1.5
3 5 1.66666666666667
5 8 1.6
8 13 1.625
… … …
144 233 1.6180555556
233 377 1.6180257511
… … …
 9
75025 121393 1.6180339887
121393 196418 1.6180339888
196418 317811 1.6180339887
… … …

Try to solve the missing patterns in columns A, B and B/A below:

Figure 22. Fibonacci Rectangle and the Golden Ratio

Source: https://noughtyscience.wordpress.com/2015/07/20/fibonacci-from-a-simple-sequence-to-the-golden-ratio/

In geometry, a golden spiral is a logarithmic spiral whose growth factor is phi, the golden ratio. That is, a golden
spiral gets wider (or further from its origin) by a factor of phi for every quarter turn in makes. Examples of Fibonacci
flowers are: three-petal lily and iris; five-petal wild rose, larkspur, buttercup and columbine; eight-petal delphiniums;
thirteen-petal flower ragwort, corn marigold and cineraria; 21-petal aster, chicory and black-eyed susan; 34-petal
phtethrum and plantain and others

References
The following are the references used to discuss several pieces of information in the discussion. References are based on
the order of appearance or citation, not in alphabetical order. Sources for figures used in this module are cited below the
figures.

1. Stevens 1974, p.3 cited at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature#CITEREFStewart2001

2. Balaguer, Mark (7 April 2009) [2004]. "Platonism in Metaphysics". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Retrieved 4 May 2012.
3. Steen, L.A. (1988). "The Science of Patterns". Science. 240: 611–616. doi:10.1126/science.240.4852.611
4. Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species. 1859, chapter 4.
5. Koning, Ross (1994). "Plant Physiology Information Website". Pollination Adaptations. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
6. Stewart 2001, pp. 48–49. Cited at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature#CITEREFStewart2001
7. Stewart 2001, pp. 64–65. Cited at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature#CITEREFStewart2001
8. Stewart 2001, p. 52. Cited at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterns_in_nature#CITEREFStewart2001
9. Mandelbrot, Benoît B. (1983). The fractal geometry of nature. Macmillan.
10. Addison, Paul S. (1997). Fractals and chaos: an illustrated course. CRC Press. pp. 44–46.

Guide Question for you to ponder:

What can you say that everything you see in nature is governed by the patterns based on mathematical concepts and
theories? What is it about mathematics that might have changed your thoughts about it? Write your thoughts on the sheet
provided after the unit assessment.
CHOOSE ONLY ONE ACTIVITY between Assessing Learning Unit 1-A and Assessing Learning Unit 1-B. You don’t need
to answer both of the activities.
 10
Assessing Learning (Unit 1-A)

Show your appreciation in the short movie and article inspired on numbers, geometry and nature by writing an essay to
answer the question: What have you learned from this video/article?

Short movie: Nature by Numbers by Cristobal Vila

https://vimeo.com/9953368

Article: Spiral and Golden Ratio by Gary Meisner

https://www.goldennumber.net/spiral

Assessing Learning (Unit 1-B)

Prepare a 2-page synthesis paper focusing on ONLY ONE of the following aspects of mathematics. You may use
several articles but please cite responsibly and correctly using APA style of citation.

1. Mathematics helps organize patterns and regularities in the world.

2. Mathematics helps predict the behavior of nature and phenomena in the world.
3. Mathematics helps control nature and occurrences in the world for the good of mankind.
4. Mathematics has numerous applications in the world, making it indispensible.

 11
Assessing Learning (Unit 1)

Name: _______________________________________________________Score: ______________________________

Course/Year/Section: ___________________________________________ Date: _______________________________

Answer to Assessing Learning Unit 1- _____

 12
Answer to the Guide Question: What can you say that everything you see in nature is governed by the patterns based on
mathematical concepts and theories? What is it about mathematics that might have changed your thoughts about it?

Assessing Learning Unit 1 References: