NATURE OF MATHEMATICS

Mathematics relies on both logic and creativity, and it is pursued both for a
variety of practical purposes and for its intrinsic interest. For some people, and not only
professional mathematicians, the essence of mathematics lies in its beauty and its
intellectual challenge. For others, including many scientists and engineers, the chief
value of mathematics is how it applies to their own work. Because mathematics plays
such a central role in modern culture, some basic understanding of the nature of
mathematics is requisite for scientific literacy. To achieve this, students need to
perceive mathematics as part of the scientific endeavor, comprehend the nature of
mathematical thinking, and become familiar with key mathematical ideas and skills.

There are creative tensions in mathematics between beauty and utility,

abstraction and application, between a search for unity and a desire to treat
phenomena comprehensively. Keith Devlin has called mathematics a "science of
patterns", which ties in with the ideas of beauty, abstraction and the search
for unity. He has also said that "mathematics makes the invisible visible", referring to
representation, modeling and application of mathematics. For example, drawing a bar
graph makes statistical information visible.

Special characteristics of mathematics are the clarity and precision of definitions,

including usage of words in ways that differ from their use in everyday language, and
the certainty of mathematical truth based on deductive mathematical reasoning. Given
what Wigner call the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics", all students should
learn the basic nature of mathematics and mathematical reasoning and its use in
organizing
and modeling natural phenomena. In the practice of mathematics, typically some
concepts and statements are taken as given. They may be applied
or serve as the foundation for the development of further mathematics. Additional
concepts can be defined carefully in terms of the given ones. Conjectures can be
developed on the basis of experience with examples. Further, statements can be
proved deductively based on what has been assumed. This process has been repeated
extensively, resulting in mathematics having its own intricate structure, with concepts
and areas of
specialization that require considerable time and study to grasp. Moreover, mathematics
is interconnected in many interesting ways.

It may be useful [Swafford 1997] to think of students learning mathematics along

the lines of a generalized structure of reasoning based on the van Hiele levels
developed in the 1950s [Van Hiele 1986]: (1) recognition, (2) analysis, (3) informal
deduction, (4) formal deduction, (5) axiomatics.
 Chapter 1

Mathematics in our World

The heart of mathematics is more than just numbers, numbers which

many supposed to be meaningless and uninteresting. Have you gone for beach trips or
did mountain climb perhaps and notice in awe the beautiful world around you? The
different shapes you see around you, the changing hues of the sky from sunrise to
sunset, the clouds transforming from stratus to cumulus, the contour of the rainbow in
the horizon are all beautiful because of harmony. The degree of changing hues of color
has to be of exact measurement to appear pleasing and harmonious to the human eye.”
And it is mathematics that reveals the simplicities of nature and permits us to generalize
from simple examples to the complexities of the real world. It took many people from
many different areas of human activity to turn a mathematical insight into a useful
product” (Stewart,1995, pp.71-72).

Mathematics is everywhere because it finds many practical applications in daily

life. God, the Mathematician, Architect, designs everything in this universe to follow
rules or formulas. Whether following regular or irregular patterns, His creation benefits
humankind, His greatest masterpiece. As Johannes Kepler wrote,” Those law of nature
is within the grasp of the human mind; God wanted us to recognize them by creating us
after his own image so that we could share in his own thoughts” (Stewart,2010)

Mathematics is the cradle of all creations, without which the world cannot move an
inch.be it a cook or a farmer, a carpenter or a mechanic, a shopkeeper or a doctor, an
engineer or a scientist, a musician or a magician, everyone needs a mathematics in
their day-to-day life. Even insects use mathematics in their everyday life for existence.

General Objectives:

At the end of this chapter, the students can:

1. discuss and argue about the nature of mathematics;

2. expressed the nature of mathematics, how it is represented, and the use of it;

3. discuss the language and symbol of mathematics;

4. apply different types of reasoning to justify statement and arguments about

mathematics; and

5. apply strategies in for effective problem solving;

Lesson 1. Mathematical Pattern and Numbers in Nature

Sequences and patterns arise naturally in many real-life situations. Pattern

is a form or model proposed for imitation that serve to construct. In the case of
sequence, Sequence is an organize object and mathematics is the science of patterns
and relationships. As a theoretical discipline, mathematics explores the possible
relationships among abstractions without concern for whether those abstractions have
counterparts in the real world. The abstractions can be anything from strings of numbers
to geometric figures to sets of equations. In addressing, say, "Does the interval between
prime numbers form a pattern?" as a theoretical question, mathematicians are
interested only in finding a pattern or proving that there is none, but not in what use
such knowledge might have. In deriving, for instance, an expression for the change in
the surface area of any regular solid as its volume approaches zero, mathematicians
have no interest in any correspondence between geometric solids and physical objects
in the real world.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this lesson, the students can identify nature that exhibit different
patterns and regularities in the world.

______________________________________________________________

Patterns in nature are visible regular forms found in the natural world. The
patterns can sometimes be modeled mathematically and they include symmetries,
trees, spirals, meanders, waves, foams, tessellations, cracks and stripes.

Pattern are regular, repeated, or recurring forms or designs. Patterns are

commonly observed in natural objects such as the six-fold symmetry of snowflakes the
hexagonal structure and formation of honeycomb, the tiger’s stripes, and hyena’s spots,
the number of seeds in a sun flower, a spiral of a snail’s shell, and the number of petals
of flowers.

Symmetry
 There are many objects in nature that are symmetrical. The face and the body of
a human being is symmetric. The left and the right wings of the butterfly is symmetrical.
Why is this so? Imagine a vertical line from the top of the head down to the chin of the
face. The distance of each point on the right side of the façade to this imaginary vertical
line is exactly the same as the distance of each point on the left side. Animals mainly
have bilateral or mirror symmetry, as do the leaves of plants and some flowers such
as orchids. 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 specialized with
a mouth and sense organs (cephalization), and the body becomes bilaterally symmetric
(though internal organs need not be).

Plants often have radial or rotational symmetry, as do many flowers and some
groups of animals such as sea anemones. Rotational symmetry is also 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. Radial symmetry suits organisms like sea anemones whose adults
do not move: food and threats may arrive from any direction.

Bilateral or Mirror Symmetry is a form of symmetry in which the opposite sides

along a midline is a duplicate of the other in terms of body parts or appearance. A mirror
symmetry operation is an imaginary operation that can be performed to reproduce an
object. The operation is done by imagining that you cut the object in half, then place a
mirror next to one of the halves of the object along the cut. If the reflection in the mirror
reproduces the other half of the object, then the object is said to have mirror symmetry.
The plane of the mirror is an element of symmetry referred to as a mirror plane, and is
symbolized with the letter m. As an example, the human body is an object that
approximates mirror symmetry, with the mirror plane cutting through the center of the
head, the center of nose and down to the groin.
 Rotational or Radial Symmetry

Rotational Symmetry is where there is a center point and numerous lines of

symmetry could be drawn. If you rotate the spiderwort and starfish above by several
degrees, you will still achieve the same appearance as the original position. this is
known as rotational symmetry. The smallest that a figure can be rotated while still
preserving the original formation is called the angle of rotation.

A more common way of describing rotational symmetry is by order of rotation.

Threefold Rotational Symmetry

An object that repeat themselves upon rotation of 120 o are said to have a 3-fold
axis of rotational symmetry (360/120 =3), and they will repeat 3 times in a 360 o rotation.
A filled triangle is used to symbolize the location of 3-fold rotation axis.
 Fourfold Rotational Symmetry

If an object repeats itself after 90 o of rotation, it will repeat 4 times in a 360 o

rotation, as illustrated previously. A filled square is used to symbolize the location of 4-
fold axis of rotational symmetry.

Fivefold Rotational Symmetry

An object that repeat themselves upon rotation of 120 o are said to have a 3-fold
axis of rotational symmetry (360/120 =3), and they will repeat 3 times in a 360 o rotation.
For the spiderwort, the angle of rotation is 120 0 while the angle of rotation for the baby
starfish is 720.

Sixfold Symmetry

If rotation of 72o about an axis causes the object to repeat itself, then it has 5-fold
axis of rotational symmetry (360/7= 5). A filled hexagon is used as the symbol for a 5-
fold rotation axis.

STRIPS
 Stripes is a long, narrow band, mark, or streak, differing in color, texture, or
material from the surrounding area. Pattern are also exhibited in the external
appearance of animals. According to a theory of Alan Turing, the man famous for
breaking the enigma code during World War II, chemical reaction and diffusion
processes in cells determine these growths of pattern. Most recent studies addressed
the question why some species grow vertical stripes while others have horizontal ones.
A new model by Harvard University researches predicts that there are three variables
that could affect the orientation of these stripes. First, the substance that amplifies the
density of stripe patterns. Second, the substance that changes one of the parameters
involved in stripes formation. Lastly, the physical change in the direction of the origin of
the stripe.

Spirals

Spirals is a curve pattern that focuses on the center point and a series of
circular shapes that revolve around it. If you construct a series of squares with lengths
equal to the Fibonacci numbers (1,1,2,3,5, etc ) and trace a line through the diagonals
of each square, it forms a Fibonacci spiral.
Many examples of the Fibonacci spiral can be seen in nature, including the
examples below.
Fractals

Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different
scales. They are patterns that is repeated at ever smaller scales to produce irregular
shapes and surfaces that cannot be represented by classical geometry. It comes from a
Latin adjective “fractus” or verb “frangere” which means to break. Fractal geometry is a
discipline named and popularized by the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot (1924-2000).
This category of geometry describes a set of curves many of which were rarely seen
before the advent of computers.

Mandelbrot wrote the fractal geometry of nature (1977) and he stated: “clouds
are not sphering, mountains are not coning, coastlines are not circling, and bark is not
smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line” some popular fractals are: Sierpinski
triangle, Pascal’s triangle, Koch snowflake, fractal trees and Barnsley ferns.

Fractals geometry is a useful tool in quantifying the structure of a wide range of

objects in nature, from pure mathematics, through physics, and chemistry, to biology and
medical sciences.
Foam

Foam is a substance formeby trapping pockets of gas in a liquid or solid. A bath

sponge and the bead on the glass of beer are example of foams.in most foams, the
volume of gas is largewith this films of liquid or solid separating the regions of gas. Soap
foams are also known as suds.

Cracks

A fracture or cracks is the separation of an object into two or more pieces under
the action of stress.the fracture is a solid usually occurs due to the development of
certain displacement discontinuity surfaces with in the solid.if a displace ment develops
perpendicular to the surface of displacement,it is called a normal tensil crack or simply a
crack.If a displacement develops tangentially to the surface of displacement,it is called a
shear crack, slip band,or dislocation.

Wave

Wave is a disturbance that transfer of energy through matter or space, withlittle

or no associated mass transport.waves consist of occilations or vibrations of a physical
medium or a field,around relatively fixed locations. Surface waves in water show water
ripples.

Tesselation

Tessellations is a pattern covering a plane by fitting together replicas of the same

basic shape. The word tessellation comes from Latin word tessera, which means a
square tablet or a die used in gambling. Tessellation have been created by nature and
the man either by accident or design. Examples range from simple hexagonal patterns
from the bees’ honeycomb, snake skin, or a tiled floor to intricate decorations used by
the Moons in thirteenths century Spain or the elaborate mathematical, but artistic
mosaic created by Mauritis Cornelis Escher in the 20 th century. To tesselate a shape, it
must be able to exactly surround a point or the sum of the angles around each point in a
tessellation must be 3600. The only regular polygons with this feature are equilateral
triangle, squares and regular hexagons.
 For a beehive, close packing is important to maximize the use of space.
Hexagons fit most closely together without any gaps; so hexagonal wax cells are what
bees create to store their eggs and larvae.

Fibonacci Numbers

Fibonacci sequence is one of the most famous formulas in mathematics. It

observed numbers in nature. His most popular contribution perhaps is the number that
is seen in the petals of flowers. A calla lily flower has only 1 petal, trillium has 3, hibiscus
has 5, cosmos flower has 8, corn marigold has 13, some asters have 21, and a daisy
can have 34,55, or 89 petals. Surprisingly, these petals count represent the first eleven
numbers of the Fibonacci sequence. Not all petal numbers of flowers, however, follows
this pattern discovered by Fibonacci. Some examples include the Brassicaceae family
having four petals. Astoundingly, many of the flowers abide by the pattern observed by
Fibonacci.

Fibonacci rabbit problems in the end of this lesson is not a realistic model of
population growth of rabbits but is a very good example of a mathematical problem
solved using patterns. It is interesting to note also that the famous rabbit problem paved
the way to the discovery of a phenomenal sequence of numbers known as the
Fibonacci Sequence.

Leonardo Pisano Fibonacci also known as Leonardo of Pisa is an Italian

mathematician and was born in Pisa, Italy on around 1170 A.D., who introduces the
sequence with a problem involving rabbits in the 13th century. He started with a male
and a female rabbit. After a month, they mature and produce a litter with another male
and female rabbit. A month later, those rabbits reproduce and out comes another male
and female, who also can mate after a month. After a year, how many rabbits would you
have? the formula used to get to that answer is what's now known as the Fibonacci
sequence.
 Sequence is an ordered list of numbers, called terms, that may have repeated
values. The arrangement of these terms is set by a definite rule. The terms of a
sequence could be generated by applying the rule to the previous term of the sequence.

Fibonacci Sequence is formed by adding the preceding two numbers, beginning

with 0 and 1. ratios of two Fibonacci numbers approximate the golden ratio, which is
considered as the most aesthetically pleasing proportion.

The principle behind the Fibonacci numbers is as follows:

 Let F n be the nth integer in the Fibonacci sequence, the next (n +1) th
term F n+1 is determined by adding nth and the (n-1) th integer.
 Consider the first few terms below: Let F 1 = 1 be the first term, and F 2 = 1
be the second term, the third term F3 is found by F3 = F1 + F2 = 1 + 1 = 2.
 The fourth term F 4 is 2 + 1 =3, the sum of the second and the third term.
 To find the new nth Fibonacci number, simply add the two numbers
immediately preceding this nth number.

n= 3 : F 3 = 1 + 1 = 2 n= 7 : F 7 = 5 + 8 = 13

n= 4 : F4 = 1 + 2 = 3 n= 8 : F8 = 8 + 13 = 21

n= 5: F 5 = 2 + 3 = 5 n= 9 : F9 = 13 + 21 = 34

n= 6 : F 6 = 3 + 5 = 8

from this pattern, we conjecture that F n = F n-1 + F n-2 for n ≥ 3, Fibonacci

discovered that a Fibonacci number can be found by adding its previous two Fibonacci
number.

F1 = 1, F2 = 1 and Fn = F n-1 + F n-2 , for n ≥ 3

Example 1: Using the definition of Fibonacci numbers find the eight and tenth
Fibonacci number.

Solution: the eight Fibonacci number is the sum of the two previous Fibonacci
number. Thus,

F8=F7+F6

= (F6 +F5) + F6

= (8 + 5) +8

= 13 + 8
 = 21

The tenth Fibonacci number is the sum of the two previous Fibonacci number in
an ordered sequence. Thus,

F 10 = F 9 + F 8

= (F8 +F7) + F8

= (21 + 13) + 21

= 34 + 21

= 55

It is easy to find the nth Fibonacci number F n if the two previous number, F n-1

and F n-2 are known. Suppose we want find F 20 using the definition, it is tedious and
time consuming to compute F 19 and F 18 to determine F 20 . Fortunately, Jacques Binet
in 1543 was able to find a formula for the nth Fibonacci number.

Binet’s Formula:

Example 2: Use Binet formula and a calculator to find the 20 th and 50th Fibonacci
number.

Solution:

Fn = (1 + √ 5 / 2) n – (1-√ 5 / 2) n / √ 5

F 20 = (1 + √ 5 / 2) 20 – (1-√ 5 / 2) 20

= 6765

Fn = (1 + √ 5 / 2) n – (1-√ 5 / 2) n / √ 5

F 50 = (1 + √ 5 / 2) 50 – (1-√ 5 / 2) 50

= 12,586,269,020
The Golden Ratio

The Fibonacci number or the Golden Ratio is been called the natures
secret code and natures universal rule. It is said to govern the dimensions of everything
from the great Pyramid of Giza to the iconic seashell found in nature.

Fibonacci numbers is very close to the Golden Ratio which is approximately

1.6180339887....the ratio of two consecutive Fibonacci numbers as n becomes large,
approaches the golden ratio; that is, lim F n / F n-1 = 1.6180339887….this can be verified
by measuring some parts of the human body: the length of the arm, height, the distance
of the fingertips to the elbow. According to Markowsky (1992), the ratio of a person’s
height to the height of his or her navel is roughly the golden ratio.

The ratio between the forearms and the hand also yields a value close to the
golden ratio.

Another name for golden ratio is divine proportion. This must be so because
human beauty is based on the divine proportion. The human face is also proportion to
the other parts of it.

 Center of pupil: bottom of teeth: bottom of chin

 Outer and inner edge of eye: center of nose
 Outer edges of lips: upper ridges of lips
 Width of center tooth: with of second tooth
 Width of eyes: with of iris

The Golden ratio can also be visualized as a rectangular perfectly formed by a

square and another rectangle, which can be repeated infinitely inside each section.
 Shapes and figures that bear this proportion are generally considered to be
aesthetically pleasing. As such, this ratio is visible in many works of art and architecture
such as in the Mona Lisa, the Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Parthenon.

If you construct a series of squares with lengths equal to the Fibonacci numbers
(1,1,2,3,5, etc) and trace a line through the diagonals of each square, it forms a
Fibonacci spiral.

The golden ratio denoted by "φ" is sometimes called the golden mean or golden
section.
"φ"= 1 + √ 5 / 2 = 1.6180339887….

Take Note:

Kindly watch in you tube channel entitled “Why is 1.618…is so important ”

using the link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keLN89CWZ-A for additional
reference.

Exponential Growth

As of 2017, it is estimated that the world population is about 7.6 billion. World
leaders, sociologist, and anthropologists, are interested in studying population, including
its growth. Mathematics can be used to model population growth.

The following two function formulas were used to easily illustrate the concepts of
growth and decay in applied situations. If a quantity grows by a fixed percent at regular
intervals, the pattern can be depicted by these functions.

Exponential Growth: Exponential Decay:

y = a (1 + r ) x y = a (1 – r ) x

Remember that the original exponential formula was y= a b x

.
You will notice that in these new growth and decay functions,
the b value (growth factor) has been replaced either by (1 + r) or by (1 - r).
The growth "rate" (r) is determined as b =1+ r.
The decay "rate" (r) is determined as b = 1 - r

a = initial value (the amount before measuring growth or decay)

r = growth or decay rate (most often represented as a percentage
and expressed as a decimal)
x = number of time intervals that have passed

Example 1: The population of hometown in 2016 was estimated to be 35,000

people with an annual rate of increase of 2.4%.
a) What is the growth factor for hometown?

b) Write an equation to model future growth.

c) Use the equation to estimate the population in 2020 to the nearest hundred
people.

Solution:

a) After one year the population would be 35,000 + 0.024(35000).

By factoring, we have 35000(1 + 0.024) or 35000(1.024).
The growth factor is 1.024. (Remember that growth factor is greater than 1.)
b) y = a b x = a (1.014) x = 35000 (1.024) x

c) y = 35000(1.024)4 ≈ 38,482.91 ≈ 38,500

Continuous Exponential Growth or Decay

Most naturally occurring phenomena grow continuously. For example, bacteria

will continue to grow over a 24 hours period, producing new bacteria which will also
grow.

The bacteria do not wait until the end of the 24 hours, and then all reproduce at
once.
The exponential” e” is used when modeling continuous growth that occurs
naturally such as populations, bacteria, radioactive decay, etc. You can think of e like a
universal constant representing how fast you could possibly grow using a continuous
process. And, the beauty of e is that not only is it used to represent continuous growth,
but it can also represent growth measured periodically across time.

Continuous Exponential Growth or Decay

A = A0 e k t

A = ending value (amount after growth or decay)

A0 = initial value (amount before measuring growth or decay)
e = exponential e = 2.71828183...
k = continuous growth rate (also called constant of proportionality)
(k > 0, the amount is increasing (growing); k < 0, the amount is decreasing
(decaying))
t = time that has passed

If we compare this new formula to our previous exponential decay formula (or
growth formula), we can see how e k is related to the rate of decay, r, (or growth).

Example: A strain of bacteria growing on your desktop doubles every 5 minutes.

Assuming that you start with only one bacterium, how many bacteria could be present at
the end of 96 minutes?
(bacteria continuously grow)

Solution:
 Now, form the equation using this k value, and solve the problem using the time
of 96 minutes.