NAME = kothivar kaushik Krishna

SECTION =16-C
SUBJECT = Math in the Modern World
TOPIC = Patterns and numbers in nature
and in the world

* Patterns in nature and in the world *

Natural patterns include symmetries, trees, spirals, meanders, waves,

foams, tessellations, cracks and stripes.

*SYMMETRY

Symmetry is pervasive in living things. Animals mainly have bilateral or

mirror symmetry, as do the leaves of plants and some flowers such as
orchids.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 the echinoderms, the group that includes starfish,
sea urchins, and sea lilies.

Among non-living things, snowflakes have striking sixfold symmetry;

each flake's structure forms a record of the varying conditions during its
crystallization, with nearly the same pattern of growth on each of its six
arms.Crystals in general have a variety of symmetries and crystal habits;
they can be cubic or octahedral, but true crystals cannot have fivefold
symmetry Rotational symmetry is found at different scales among non-
living things, including the crown-shaped splash pattern formed when a
drop falls into a pond,and both the spheroidal shape and rings of a planet
like Saturn.
 Symmetry has a variety of causes. Radial symmetry suits organisms like
sea anemones whose adults do not move: food and threats may arrive
from any direction. But animals that move in one direction necessarily
have upper and lower sides, head and tail ends, and therefore a left and a
right. The head becomes specialised with a mouth and sense organs , and
the body becomes bilaterally symmetric (though internal organs need not
be).More puzzling is the reason for the fivefold (pentaradiate) symmetry
of the echinoderms. Early echinoderms were bilaterally symmetrical, as
their larvae still are. Sumrall and Wray argue that the loss of the old
symmetry had both developmental and ecological causes.
*FRACTALS

Fractals are infinitely self-similar, iterated mathematical constructs having

fractal dimension.Infinite iteration is not possible in nature so all 'fractal'
patterns are only approximate. For example, the leaves of ferns and
umbellifers are only self-similar (pinnate) to 2, 3 or 4 levels. Fern-like
growth patterns occur in plants and in animals including bryozoa, corals,
hydrozoa like the air fern, Sertularia argentea, and in non-living things,
notably electrical discharges. Lindenmayer system fractals can model
different patterns of tree growth by varying a small number of parameters
including branching angle, distance between nodes or branch points , and
number of branches per branch point.

Fractal-like patterns occur widely in nature, in phenomena as diverse as

clouds, river networks, geologic fault lines, mountains, coastlines,animal
coloration, snow flakes,crystals,blood vessel branching,actin
cytoskeleton,and ocean waves.
*SPIRALS

Spirals are common in plants and in some animals, notably molluscs. For
example, in the nautilus, a cephalopod mollusc, each chamber of its shell
is an approximate copy of the next one, scaled by a constant factor and
arranged in a logarithmic spiral.Given a modern understanding of fractals,
a growth spiral can be seen.

Plant spirals can be seen in phyllotaxis, the arrangement of leaves on a

stem, and in the arrangement of other parts as in composite flower heads
and seed heads like the sunflower or fruit structures like the pineapple
and snake fruit, as well as in the pattern of scales in pine cones, where
multiple spirals run both clockwise and anticlockwise. These
arrangements have explanations at different levels – mathematics,
physics, chemistry, biology – each individually correct, but all necessary
together.[53] Phyllotaxis spirals can be generated mathematically from
Fibonacci ratios: the Fibonacci sequence runs 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13... (each
subsequent number being the sum of the two preceding ones). For
example, when leaves alternate up a stem, one rotation of the spiral
touches two leaves, so the pattern or ratio is 1/2. In hazel the ratio is 1/3;
in apricot it is 2/5; in pear it is 3/8; in almond it is 5/13.In disc phyllotaxis
as in the sunflower and daisy, the florets are arranged in Fermat's spiral
with Fibonacci numbering, at least when the flowerhead is mature so all
the elements are the same size. Fibonacci ratios approximate the golden
angle, 137.508°, which governs the curvature of Fermat's spiral.

From the point of view of physics, spirals are lowest-energy

configurations .which emerge spontaneously through self-organizing
processes in dynamic systems.From the point of view of chemistry, a
spiral can be generated by a reaction-diffusion process, involving both
activation and inhibition. Phyllotaxis is controlled by proteins that
manipulate the concentration of the plant hormone auxin, which activates
meristem growth, alongside other mechanisms to control the relative
angle of buds around the stem. From a biological perspective, arranging
leaves as far apart as possible in any given space is favoured by natural
selection as it maximises access to resources, especially sunlight for
photosynthesis.
*numbers in nature and in the world*

Fibonacci sequence is most effective in solve problems in nature .

Fibonacci sequence : 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21,34,55,89…

The rabbits of Fibonacci and the famous sequence

How many pairs of rabbits will be born in a year, starting from a single
pair, if each month each pair gives birth to a new pair which becomes
reproductive from the second month?”. The solution to this problem is the
famous “Fibonacci sequence”: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21,34,55,89… a
sequence of numbers in which each member is the sum of the previous
two

An important characteristic of the sequence is the fact that the ratio

between any number and the previous one in the series tends towards a
well-defined value: 1.618… This is the golden ratio or golden section, φ ,
that frequently occurs in nature .

The Fibonacci sequence in nature

Observing the geometry of plants, flowers or fruit, it is easy to recognize

the presence of recurrent structures and forms. The Fibonacci sequence,
for example, plays a vital role in phyllotaxis, which studies the
arrangement of leaves, branches, flowers or seeds in plants, with the main
aim of highlighting the existence of regular patterns. The various
arrangements of natural elements follow surprising mathematical
regularities: D’arcy Thompson observed that the plant kingdom has a
curious preference for particular numbers and for certain spiral
geometries, and that these numbers and geometries are closely related.

We can easily find the numbers of the Fibonacci sequence in the spirals
formed by individual flowers in the composite inflorescences of daisies,
sunflowers, cauliflowers and broccoli.

It was Kepler who noted that on many types of trees the leaves are
aligned in a pattern that includes two Fibonacci numbers. Starting from
any leaf, after one, two, three or five turns of the spiral there is always a
leaf aligned with the first and, depending on the species, this will be the
second, the third, the fifth, the eighth or the thirteenth leaf.