The Beauty Of Nature In The Language Of Mathematics


"The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God" -Euclid


Mathematics is everywhere. It is in the objects we create; in the works of art, we admire. When we talk about Mathematics, we all think about numbers, books, computers, etc. Although we may not notice, as we discover more about our environment, we see that, nature can be described mathematically, right from the beauty of a flower, majesty of a tree, to landscapes, species of plants and animals, including human species.



Geometrical Shapes

We find many shapes being hidden in nature. 


  • Just after a rain, we do find a rainbow at times, which is semicircle in shape.
  • Honeycombs of bees are hexagon shaped which increases its capacity.
  • A sliced lady's finger has a triangle at its center.
  • Volcanoes are conical in shape.
  • Tesselated Pavements which are rare formed by perfect rectangles.
  • A tree being cut has concentric circles with light and dark coloured circles.



Symmetry

We see that in nature, symmetry is very common and beautiful.

  • Butterflies are greater example that exhibit bilateral symmetry.
  • Orchids and many other flowers are bilateral symmetrical.
  • Most animals and mamals like dolphin exhibit bilateral symmetry.
  • Many leaves show bilateral symmetry due to its presence of mid-vein.
  • Orb web of spiders exhibit radial symmetry.
  • Snowflakes indicate 6-fold radial symmetry.
  • Flowers like buttercup and wild rose exhibit radial symmetry.
  • We see that a jelly fish exhibit radial symmetry.

Fibonacci

We see that Fibonacci sequence is found everywhere in nature.

  • The number of seed spirals of sunflower adds up to a Fibonacci number.
  • In pinecones, the step number matches a pair of consecutive Fibonacci numbers.
  • Rose petals are arranged in a Fibonacci spiral.
  • The number of spiral rows of eyes in pineapple is a consecutive triplet of Fibonacci numbers.
  • Number of petals in most flowers are Fibonacci numbers.

Golden Ratio

Called as 'divine proportion' because of its frequency in the natural world.

  • Golden ratio appears in the petals of flowers like Daisy.
  • Spiral galaxies resemble golden spiral.
  • Golden ratio is prevalent in hurricanes.
  • Human face is even related to golden ratio. 




Nature hides numbers, equations and proportions that can be discovered by anyone who is curious enough. Mathematics is the cradle of all creations without which the world would not move an inch. Out there in the jungle of unknown, is a whole new area of mathematics, directly relevant to the study of nature.




"The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics."
- Galileo Galilei


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