Name: JHON LEINARD M.

AGCAOILI Date: APRIL 2021

Course/Year/Section: BSA 1-16 Assign 1 M1 Reflection

ASSIGNMENT 1: REFLECTION/SUMMARY OF STEWARTS NATURES NUMBER

Read and understand the article and then make a summary or a write-up/reflection on Stewart’s
Natures Number. Use a minimum of 20 sentences and a maximum of 50 sentences.

All I can think of when I hear the word "mathematics" is numbers. I dislike math, but that at the
end of the day, I learned how to solve problems and not to give up when I do not understand anything
completely. I am not a fan of math, but I admit that I do need it.

Why does the universe seem to be so mathematical? This question, which you might have never
considered, turns out to be one of the most perplexing philosophical conundrums of our time. No one
knows the answer, to put it plainly. No one understands why mathematics, which is a creation of our
minds, so accurately represents the real universe, the separate world beyond. In an article titled “The
Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics,” Eugene Wigner, a Nobel laureate in physics, posed the
question 35 years ago. No one has been able to move the ball forward since then. The world seems to
be structured in a profoundly mathematical way to us. Falling bodies accelerate at a predictable pace.
Eclipses can be predicted hundreds of years in advance. Nuclear power plants use well-known formulas
to produce electricity.

Ian Stewart opened our eyes and taught us how to see the world through the eyes of a
mathematician. He assisted us in accepting the concept of mathematics being all around us. The
presentation of apparent patterns, integral relationships of odd objects, and how everything interacts
with everything else. He demonstrated how the generalities and regularities of these things in the
universe helped a great deal in achieving universality amid their diversity, and he referred to these tiny
symmetrical details as patterns. Patterns that are visible everywhere, patterns that are present in any
object visible and invisible, and patterns that are difficult to ignore. Patterns are both useful and
beautiful. Exceptions stand out until we have learned to identify a context pattern. He went on to
illustrate the patterns using examples such as the stripes on hyenas and tigers, the honeycomb, the
alignment of the ending points of snowflakes, the form of raindrops dropping from the sky, and each
flower having the same number of petals. As intelligent beings, we developed a systematic framework of
thinking for understanding, classifying, and exploring patterns, which we dubbed mathematics.

Upon reading the article, I realized that math is not just about numbers; it is also about
fascinating facts about patterns found in nature, and we live in a universe full of them. Interesting
description of how patterns, symmetry, rhythms, and chaos are central to the structure of nature, rather
than addition, multiplication, and so on. Mathematics is indeed all around us!