TOMAS CLAUDIO COLLEGES

Higher Education Pioneer in Eastern Rizal

Taghangin, Morong, Rizal 1960 Philippines
Tel. Nos.: (02) 234-5566 / 234-5503 / 234-5431 Telefax: (02) 653-1111

Module in
GE 13 Mathematics in the
Modern World

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 Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Mathematics in Our World

 Patterns and Numbers in Nature and in the World……………………………….3
 Fibonacci Sequence………………………………………………………………….5
 Golden Ratio…………………………………………………………………………..7
 Patterns and Regularities in the World…………………………………………….10

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CHAPTER 1. MATHEMATICS IN OUR WORLD
Learning Competencies
At the end of this chapter, the learner will be able to:
1. Argue about the nature of mathematics , what is , how it is expressed,
represented and used
2. Discuss the concept Fibonacci and its applications
3. Identify patterns in nature and regularities in the world

Patterns and Numbers in Nature and in the World

In our everyday lives, we are being surrounded by numbers, measurements and

other forms of mathematics starting from time we wake up that defines the number of
sleep we had up to amount of money we spent for our food, transportation and other
expenses. Even the shapes of the windows in the church or the factors that influence us
on deciding which route to take when going to a place, involves mathematics.

Patterns in nature are visible regularities of form found in the natural word and
can also be seen in the universe. These patterns in different context can sometimes be
modelled mathematically. Man has developed a formal system of thought for
recognizing, classifying, and exploiting patterns which we called mathematics. By
applying mathematics to organize and systematize ideas about patterns, we have
discovered a pattern in nature. Nature patterns which are not just to be admired, they
are vital clues to the rules that govern natural processes. Patterns possess utility as well
as beauty and once we have learned to recognize a background pattern, we can
immediately appreciate it.

Patterns can be observed even in the stars which move in circles across the sky
each day. The weather season cycle each year (e.g. winter, spring, summer, and fall).
All snowflakes contain sixfold symmetry which no two are exactly the same. There are
evidences presented by mathematician that hexagonal snowflakes have an atomic
geometry of ice crystals.

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 Patterns can be seen in fish patterns like spotted trunkfish, spotted puffer, blue
spotted stingray, spotted moral eel, coral grouper, redlion fish, yellow boxfish, and angle
fish. These animals and fish stripes and spots attest to mathematical regularities in
biological growth and form. These evolutionary and functional arguments explain why
these animals need their patterns, but it is not explained how the patterns are formed.

Spotted trunkfish spotted puffer blue spotted stingray spotted Moral eel

Coral grouper red lion fish yellow boxfish angel fish

Zebras, tigers, cats, and snakes are covered in patterns of stripes; leopards, and
hyenas are covered in patterns of spots; giraffes are covered in patterns of blotches

Tiger zebra leopard cat

Snake hyena giraffe

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 Natural patterns like the intricate waves across the oceans; sand dunes on
deserts; formation of typhoon, water drop with ripple, and others. These serves as clues
to the rules that govern the flow of water; sand and air. One of the most strikingly
mathematical landscapes on Earth is to be found in the great ergs, or sand oceans, of
the Arabian and Sahara Deserts. When wind blows steadily in a fixed direction, sand
dunes form and the simplest pattern is the transverse dunes, which looks like ocean
waves. If the sand is slightly moist, there is a little vegetation to bind it together, then
you may find parabolic dunes.

Ocean waves desert dunes typhoon water ripples

Other patterns in nature can also be seen in the ball of mackerel, the v-formation
of geese in the sky, and the tornado formation of starling. This prevalence of pattern in
locomotion extends to the scuttling of insects, the flight of birds, the pulsations of jelly
fish and the wavelike movements of fish, worms and snakes.

Ball of mackerel v-formation of geese tornado formation of sterling

Everywhere we go, we can see patterns that can sometimes distinguished

something that can sometimes distinguished something to other things. By just simply
recalling pattern, we can identify animals, places, money, etc. We can see the
resemblance between the two, but by looking at the pattern on the stripes in the skin of
the zebra, we can identify which is which when placed side by side.

Fibonacci Sequence

Around 1200 AD when Pizano or Leonardo of Pisa (1170-1250) published the

Liber Abbaci, or “Book of Calculation”, an arithmetic text which concentrated mainly on
financial computations and promoted the use of Hindu-Arabic numerals – the forerunner
of today’s familiar system, which uses just ten digits, 0 to 9, to represent all possible
numbers.

Leonardo of Pisa discovered a sequence of numbers that created an interesting

pattern known as Fibonacci sequence ( 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 13, 21, 34, …) and its terms the

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Fibonacci numbers. Each number is obtained by adding the last two numbers of the
sequence.

Flower petals exhibit the Fibonacci number, white calla lily contains 1 petal,
euphorbia contains 2 petals, trillium contains 3 petals, columbine contains 5 petals,
bloodroot contains 8 petals, black-eyed susan contains 13 petals, sasha daisy 21
petals, field daisies contain 34, and other types of daisies contain 55 and 89 petals.

White Cally Lily Euphorbia Trillium Columbine

Bloodroot Black-eyed Susan Shasta Daisy Field Daisies

The sunflower seed conveys the Fibonacci sequence. The pattern of two spiral
goes in opposing directions (clockwise and counter-clockwise). the number of clockwise
spirals and counter clockwise spirals are consecutive Fibonacci numbers and usually
contains 34 and 55 seeds.

sunflower

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 Pineapples have spirals formed by their hexagonal nubs. The nubs on many
pineapples form 5 spirals and 8 spirals, or 8 spirals and 13 spirals that rotate diagonally
upward to the right depending on the size of the pineapple.

Golden Ratio
The discovery of Fibonacci sequence happened to approach the ration
asymptotically. The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers in which each number
(Fibonacci number) is the sum of the two preceding numbers. The simplest is the series
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, … He found the interesting and mysterious properties of the Fibonacci
sequence that the series has a deep relationship with the golden ratio. The golden
ratio was first called as the Divine Proportion in the early 1500’s in Leonardo da
Vinci’s work which was explored by Luca Pacioli (Italian mathematician) entitled “De
Devina Proportions” in 1509. This contains the drawings of the five platonic solids and it
was probably da Vinci who first called it the “section aurea” which is Latin for Golden
Section.
In mathematics, two quantities are in the Golden Ratio if their ratio is the same of
their sum to the larger of the two quantities. The Golden Ratio is the relationship
between numbers on the Fibonacci sequence where plotting the relationship on scales
results in a spiral shape. In simple forms, golden ratio is expressed as an equation,
where a is larger than b, (a+b) divided by a is equal to a divided by b, which is equal
to 1.618033987… and represented by a Greek character φ

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 These numbers are all successive numbers in the Fibonacci
sequence. These numbers can be applied to the proportions of a rectangle,
called Golden Rectangle. This is known as one of the most visually
satisfying of all geometric forms – hence, the appearance of the Golden
ratio in art. The golden rectangle is also related to the Golden spiral, which
is created by making adjacent squares of Fibonacci dimensions. A
Fibonacci spiral which approximates the golden spiral, using Fibonacci
sequence square sizes up to 34. The spiral is drawn starting from the inner
1x1 square and continues outwards to successively larger squares. The
golden ratio is the limit of the ratios of successive terms of the Fibonacci
sequence (or any Fibonacci-like sequence), as originally shown by
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630).

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Patterns and Regularities

Mathematics is all around us. As we discover more about our environment, we

can mathematically describe nature. The beauty of a flower, the majestic tree, even the
rock formation exhibits nature’s sense of symmetry. There are also examples of
microscopic level of nature such as snowflakes. There are different types of pattern
such as symmetry, fractals and spirals.

A. Symmetry

Symmetry is a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion of balance or an object

is invariant to any of various transformations (reflection, rotation or scaling).

There are two main types of symmetry, bilateral and radial).

a. Bilateral symmetry is a symmetry in which the left and right sides of the organism
can be divided into approximately mirror image of each other along the midline.
Symmetry exists in living things such as in insects, animals, plants, flowers, and
others. Animals mainly have bilateral or vertical symmetry, even leaves of plants and
some flowers such as orchids.

b. Radial Symmetry (or rotational symmetry) is a type of symmetry around a fixed point
known as the center and it can be classified as either cyclic or dihedral. Plants often
have radial or rotational symmetry, as to flowers and some group of animals. A five-
fold symmetry is found in echinoderms, the group which includes star fish (dihedral-
D5 symmetry), sea urchins, and sea lilies (dihedral-D5 symmetry). Radial symmetry
suits organisms like sea anemones and jelly fish (dihedral-D4 symmetry). Radial
Symmetry is also evident in different kinds of flowers.

Butterfly lobster starfish

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 Sea urchin sea lilies

apple melon orange kiwi

Among non-living things, snowflakes have six-fold symmetry, each flake’s structure
forms a record of varying conditions during its crystallization, with nearly the same
pattern of growth on each of its six arms.

B. Fractals

Fractals is curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same statistical
character as the whole. Fractal is one of the newest and most exciting branches of
mathematics. It is a class of highly irregular shapes that are related to continents,
coastlines, and snowflakes. It is useful in modelling structures in which similar
patterns recur at progressively smaller scales, and in describing partly random or
chaotic phenomena such as crystal growth, fluid turbulence, and galaxy formation.
Fractals can be seen in some plants, trees, leaves and others.

Crystal fluid turbulence leaf

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 Romanesco broccoli pinecone tree

C. Spirals
A logarithmic spiral (or growth spiral) is a self-similar spiral curve which often
appears in nature. It was first described by Rene Descartes and was later
investigated by Jacob Bernoulli. Spirals are more evident in plants. We also see
spirals in typhoon, whirlpool, galaxy tail of a chameleon and shell among others.

Spiral worm fern spiral spiral aloe iguana’s tail

Exercise 1.

1. Collect and discuss other patterns in nature

2. Identify and discuss symmetries, fractals and spirals in your surroundings.

3. Present and discuss some other golden ratio in nature, arts and in architecture.

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