Synthesis Paper on “Nature’s Numbers” by Ian Stewart

Introduction

Ian Stewart's book "Nature's Number" explores about how mathematics has affected us
today. It tells us how mathematics is in our environment literally, without even realizing it, how
to treat specific circumstances with the aid of mathematics, the application of mathematics in our
world and the enjoyment of mathematics from its earliest discovery to the present.

BODY

THE NATURAL ORDE'R

Our environment is filled with patterns. As human brains improve through time, they
have been able to create a process of realization, classification, and exploitation of patterns
around us. It's been termed math. We have uncovered tremendous mysteries by studying and
using arithmetic; patterns are important indicators for governing natural processes in our
environment. The fractal and the chaos are two kinds of patterns. Fractals are geometric
structures that replicate their structure on ever more thin levels like trees, flowers, etc. whereas
chaos is some seeming randomness, the roots of which are completely predictable.
The idea that an animal or person should be moved may be called a pattern. In addition to
numerical patterns, there is a collection of dots forms such as triangles, squares, pentagons, etc.
As different mathematical theories were developed, more complicated patterns of nature began
to disclose their secrets as time passed by. But after having determined that nature is rich with
models, "What would we want to do with them?" every individual has various inclinations
throughout the years because of this issue. But mathematics helps to solve problems, it is a
methodical approach to dig structures beneath patterns to explain what is happening.
 WHAT MATHEMATICS IS FOR

Isaac Newton, a very notable scientist, found that the object's motion was defined by the
mathematical connection between force on the body and its acceleration. They could create a
new area of mathematics, the Calculus, along with German mathematician, Gottfried Liebniz.
But mankind was extremely interested about calculus for almost 200 years, physicists got it right,
mathematicians concerned about what it meant and how it could be defined as a mathematical
theory and philosophers argued that it is nonsensical.
The calculus story illustrates two of the major things that mathematics offers as
instruments for scientists to compute what nature is going on and questions the pleasure of
mathematicians. But what does the pattern that we see mean to teach us? We want to
comprehend how mathematics works; to understand why it takes place; to arrange patterns in the
most satisfactory manner; to anticipate how nature acts; to manage our nature for our own goals;
and to make practical use of our knowledge of the universe. Gregor Mendel was able to discover
genetics because of mathematical hints. He observed significant numerical connections as plants
with various characteristics, such as the color of the seed, altered as they crossed the plants.
This led to the fundamental concept of genetics with his finding that every organism is a
crypticcombination of variables determining many of the characteristics that are part of its body
plan, and these components get mixed up and recombined somehow when passed from parents to
children. It begins with a mathematical model of a flat cell area and allows for different
"mutation" kinds. There is also another function called prediction in mathematics. By knowing
the movement of the celestial bodies, astronomers could forecast the return of comets and lunar
and solar eclipses.

WHAT MATHEMATICS IS ABOUT

These examples teach us the many aspects of mathematics: how mathematics gains
success in real applications. Our universe is built on mathematical underpinnings, and
mathematics is inevitably integrated into our global society. The first thing we hear the term
"mathematics" is the number. Numbers as common knowledge is the core of mathematics, which
forges large amounts of mathematics. But numbers in their own form are only a small portion of
mathematics.
For instance, we couldn't purchase food without the capacity to count eggs and deduct
changes. We teach arithmetic, thus. Its absence is a significant impediment for everyone.
Actually, the count started long before symbols like 1, 2, 3 had existed, since you could count
them without using any number, such as counting on your fingers, using clay disks with pictures
of an animal and scratches on wood or bone. Although they have these ways to count, it has been
possible for them to identify or value things differently and to improve our current ways of using
mathematical methods, for example by adding 0 in the number system, using fractions, including
real numbers, applying operations like adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing to two or
more mathematical objects.

THE CONSTANTS OF CHANGE

In the real world, mathematical "things" do not exist they are abstractions. But
mathematical processes are abstractions too, such that processes are no less "things" than the
"things" they apply to. Human thinking about nature has swung between two conflicting points
of view for many centuries. One perspective shows that the world obeys definite, unchanging
rules, and everything existing in a well-defined objective reality. The development of science
was mainly controlled by the first point of view. In the 18th century and subsequently, Newton
became the first and greatest scientist of the modern era, a rationalist who taught us to reflect on
the cool and unfaded lines. Newton wasn't the first reason age. He is the last of the magicians,
the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind to look at the visible and
intellectual world with the same eyes as those who, rather than ten thousand years ago, started to
create our intellectual inheritance.
The universe may seem to be a storm-tossed ocean of change, but Newton and before him
Galileo and Kepler, the giants upon whose shoulders he stood-realized that change obeys laws.
Not only may law and flux coexist, but law creates flux. But at that time the apparent goal of
mathematics was to uncover the inventory of "ideal forms" used by nature. Nature, the creation
of higher creatures, is flawless, and ideal shapes are mathematical perfection, therefore of course
the two go together. And perfection was believed to be untouched by change. Newton's rule of
motion offers an essential lesson: specifically, that the path from nature's laws to nature's
behavior need not be straight and apparent

. FROM VIOLINS TO VIDEOS

The patterns and regularities of nature have other sources, but mathematics, at least, is a
highly efficient method for people to understand these patterns. Why did humans initially desire
a formula? Because it was the only method to figure out what sort of movements would occur in
the early days of dynamics. The same information may afterwards be derived through
approximations. Today, theories that deal directly and accurately with the major qualitative
features of the motion may be produced. The division of mathematics into two different
subdisciplines, namely pure mathematics and applied mathematics, has become conventional.
Even mathematics can be easily grasped, but the classical fields of science have become
so vast that no one mind can possibly embrace them. Unfortunately, it is therefore extremely
attractive for the world to believe that the only valuable aspect of mathematics is the application
of mathematics. Anything helpful ultimately ends up being seen as applied, irrespective of its
beginnings, but provides a skewed perspective of the origins of new, practical mathematics.
Good ideas are unusual, but they originate from fantastic thoughts about the underlying
structure of mathematics as many as they can to address a particular practical issue. Imagine an
idealized violin string, whose elastic tension rises as you draw it sideways, producing a force that
pulls its initial position back. When you let go, it starts to accelerate in accordance with Newton's
law of motion under the influence of this force. As the knowledge of the wave equation
increased, the eighteenth-century mathematicians were able to solve the wave equation for the
movement of drums of different forms.
The identical equation started to appear everywhere. It appeared in fluid dynamics, in
sound theory, and in electrical and magnetism theories and altered human civilization forever.
Electricity and magnetism have a lengthy and complex history, much harder than the wave
equation, including accidental findings, important experiments, and mathematical and scientific
ideas.
 BROKEN SYMMETRY

Symmetry is a mathematical notion; it enables us to categorize and differentiate between

various kinds of regular pattern. Symmetry breaking is a more dynamic concept, which describes
pattern alterations. There's a lot of symmetry. The most significant are reflections, rotations, and
translationsor flips, tours, and slides, less technically. On every scale, from the structures of
subatomic particles to the whole cosmos, the symmetries of nature may be discovered. The
breakdown of symmetry is precisely such a premise. But it must be there to begin with for
symmetry to shatter. If something is symmetrical, its component characteristics may be replaced
or exchanged.
The symmetry-breaking mathematical concepts apply for any system with the same
symmetry-all that passes across a flat surface producing patterns. Life is a process of symmetry-
replication: The biological universe is as mass-produced as the physical universe, and thus the
organic world shows many patterns seen in the inorganic world. The same fundamental
technique for forming patterns, the same mechanism for breaking symmetry into a mass-
produced world, controls the cosmos, the atom and humanity. Nature is nothing but rhythm, with
numerous and different rhythms.

THE RHYTHM OF LIFE

Many of the rhythms of nature are like a heartbeat: they look for themselves, run 'in the
background.' Others are like breathing, there's a basic 'default' pattern that works when nothing
unexpected occurs, but also a more advanced control system that may kick in when required.
Controllable rhythms of this type are very frequent and especially fascinating locomotives. In
legged animals, the default motion patterns which occur when cognitive control does not work
are known as gaits. The organizing idea underlying many of these biological cycles is the
mathematical notion of an oscillator-a unit that repeats the same behavioral cycle in its natural
dynamics.
Some animals have just one rhythmic default pattern to move their extremities. For
example, the elephant can only walk whereas other animals have various gaits. Take, for
example, the horse. Horses walk at moderate speeds, trot at higher speeds, and then gallop at
high speeds. Some people put an additional movement, a canter, between a trot and a gallop. The
dynamics of CPGs are used to change gaits (Central Pattern Generator). The fundamental
concept behind the CPG models is that animal gaits' rhythm and phase interaction are controlled
by the natural pattern of oscillation of relatively simple brain circuits. Symmetry also organizes
potential transitions between gaits. The quicker the animal travels, the lower its symmetry:
greater speed destroys more symmetry.
The rhythms of nature are frequently associated with symmetry and that patterns that
occur may be quantitatively categorized by invoking the general rules of breaking the symmetry.
Mathematics may reveal many elements of nature that we usually do not consider to be
mathematical. Non-linear dynamics is one of the most fascinating new fields of mathematics,
often called chaos theory. It creates a revolution in the way we think about order and unrest, law,
opportunity, predictability, and unpredictability.

DO DICE PLAY GOD!

According to contemporary physics, nature is governed at its lowest space and temporal
scales by chance. In every physical system, the most accurate measures are exact at about 10 or
twelve decimal places. Therefore, a system that is sensitive to starting circumstances is said to be
chaotic. Chaos is not just complex, it is less behavioral, but much subtler. Chaos is seemingly
complex, with less behavior that seems to have a straightforward, predictable explanation. It was
due to the combination of three different advancements. One was a shift in scientific emphasis to
more complicated behaviors, away from basic patterns, such repeating cycles.
The second was the computer, which allowed approximate solutions for dynamic
equations to be found simply and quickly. The third was a fresh mathematical perspective on
dynamicsrather than numerical. The first was motivating, the second was technical and the third
gave comprehension. Chaos has an odd geometry of its own: it is linked to curious fractal forms,
termed strange attractors. The discovery of chaos has exposed a fundamental mistake in our
perception of the relationship between the rules and their behavior.
We formerly thought that deterministic causes had to create regular effects, but today we
know that they may yield very irregular results which can easily be wrong with randomness. It
informs us that the cosmos is weirder than we believe. A chaotic system may respond
considerably faster and with far less effort to external events. Chaos is an industry of
development. New discoveries concerning the underlying chaotic mathematics, new applications
of chaos to our knowledge of the natural world or new technology uses of chaos may be found
every week. Chaos tells us that systems that follow basic principles may be complex
unexpectedly.

DROPS, DYNAMICS, AND DAISIES

But the world cannot be entirely chaotic, else humans cannot live. Indeed, one of the
reasons why chaos has not been found earlier is because our world is basic in many respects.
This simplicity seems to vanish when we delve under the surface, yet it's still there on the
surface. The phrase "foxes pursue rabbits" only makes sense because it reflects a typical pattern
of animal interaction. Foxes pursue the rabbits in the sense that if a hungry fox spots a rabbit, it
will probably follow.
Vision, pattern recognition and movement must be understood. Recently, under the term
complexity theory, a completely new approach was proposed. Its fundamental idea is that the
intricate interactions of many components give rise to large-scale simplicities. In its own delicate
way, nature is simple.However, these simplicities are not immediately available to us. Rather,
nature gives clues to the mathematical detectives.

Conclusion

Mathematics is indeed around us. We might comprehend a lot about ourselves, from
simple identifying the patterns of our surrounds, living and non-living objects, to more complex
building of formulae and hypotheses. Due to the existence of mathematics, this helped to develop
science and to build various types of tools to be able to know about the celestial bodies and the
size of the universe. Without these mathematical theories, formulas, laws or even those
influential scientists, we may not be able to collect answers for unknown things or for literally
things there, and we may not be able to appreciate most or more about the secrets, mysteries, and
clues to our nature and all about ourselves.
Reference:

https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2019/03/31/natures-numbers-ian-stewart/