CHAPTER 1:

NATURE OF
MATHEMATICS
SECTION 1.1: PATTERS AND NUMBERS IN
NATURE AND THE WORLD
PATTERNS
ACTIVITY
1:
Choose which pattern comes
next in the given
illustrations.
ACTIVITY
1:
Choose which pattern comes
next in the given
illustrations.
ACTIVITY
1:
Choose which pattern comes
next in the given
illustrations.
ACTIVITY
1:
Choose which pattern comes
next in the given
illustrations.
ACTIVITY
1:
Choose which pattern comes
next in the given
illustrations.
SYMMET
RY
ORDER OF
ROTATION
Honey
Comb
Proof:
 Suppose you have circles of
radius 1 cm, each of will then
have an area of We are then
PACKING
going to fill a plane with these
circles using square packing
PROBLEM
and hexagonal packing. Definition: Packing Problem
involve finding the optimum
method of filling up a given
  square packing, each square will have an area of . Note from figure 6 that for
For space such as cubic or spherical
each square, it can only fit one circle. The percentage of square’s area covered by container.
circles will be:

2
Claim: If hexagonal structure
 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝑜𝑓 𝑡h𝑒 𝑐𝑖𝑟𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝜋 𝑐𝑚 is used, then more area will be
𝑥 100 %= 2
𝑥 100 %  ≈ 78.54 %
𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝑜𝑓 𝑡h𝑒 𝑠𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑟𝑒 4 𝑐𝑚 covered.

For hexagonal packing, we can think of each hexagon as composed of six equilateral
triangles with side equal to 2 cm.
 Proof: (Continuation)
  The area of each triangle is given by
PACKING
PROBLEM
Definition: Packing Problem
involve finding the optimum
method of filling up a given
space such as cubic or spherical
 
Thus, the area of the hexagon is . Looking at Figure 7, there are 3 circles that
container.
could find inside one hexagon (the whole circle in the middle and 6 one-thirds of
a circle), which gives total area as 3 The percentage of the hexagon’s area
covered by circles will be
Claim: If hexagonal structure
is used, then more area will be
  𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝑜𝑓 𝑡h𝑒 𝑐𝑖𝑟𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑠 3 𝜋 𝑐𝑚 2 covered.
𝑥 100 %= 2
𝑥 100 %  ≈ 90.69 %
𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝑜𝑓 𝑡h𝑒 h𝑒𝑥𝑎𝑔𝑜𝑛 6 √ 3 𝑐𝑚

Comparing the two percentages, we can clearly see that using the hexagons will
cover a larger are than when using squares.
OTHER
MATHEMATIC
S IN THE
NATURE AND
THE WORLD
Examples:
According to Alan Turing, a British
Mathematician, the formation of
hyena’s spot and tiger stripes is
governed by a set of equations. What
Turing proposed was that there are
two chemicals interacting inside the
embryo of an animal. He did not know
what these chemicals were, so he
named them morphogens and
proposed that they reacted with each
other and diffused through the embryo
according to a system of “reaction –
diffusion equations.”
Resources: