THE NATURE OF MATHEMATICS

Discussions
The Nature of Mathematics

In the book of Stewart, Nature’s Number, he that mathematics is a formal system

of thought that was gradually developed in the human mind and evolved in thE
human culture. Thus, in the long course of human history, our ancestors at a
certain point were endowed with insight to realize the existence of “form” in their
surroundings. From their realization, a system of thought further advanced their
knowledge into understanding measures. They were able to gradually develop the
science of measures and gained the ability to count, gauge, assess, quantify, and
size almost everything.

From our ancestor’s realization of measures, they were able to notice and
recognize some rudiment hints about patterns. Thus, the concept of recognizing
shapes made its course towards classifying contour and finally using those designs
to build human culture: an important ingredient for a civilization to flourish. From
then, man realized that the natural world is embedded in a magnanimously
mathematical realm of patterns----and that natural order efficiently utilizes all

mathematical patterns to its advantage. As a result, we made use of mathematics

as a brilliant way to understand the nature by comprehending the structure of its
underlying patterns and regularities.

Mathematics is present in everything we do; it is all around us and it is the

building block of our daily activities. It has been at the forefront of each and every
period of our development, and as our civilized societies advanced, our needs of
mathematics pioneering arose on the frontier of our course as we prepare our
human species to traverse the cosmic shore.

Mathematics is a Tool
Mathematics, as a tool, is immensely useful, practical, and powerful. It is not about
crunching numbers, formulas, and symbols but rather, it is all about forming new
ways to see problems so we can understand them by combining insights with
imagination. It also allows us to perceive realities in different contexts that would
otherwise be intangible to us. It can be likened to our sense of sight and touch.
Mathematics is our sense to decipher patterns, relationships, and logical
connections. It is our whole new way to see and understand the modern world.

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Mathematics, being a broad and deep discipline, deals with the logic of shape,
quantity, and arrangement. Once, it was perceived merely a collective thoughts
dealing with counting numbers, but it is now being understood as a universal
language dealing with symbols, arts, equations, geometric shapes and patterns. It
is asserting that mathematics is a powerful tool in decision-making and it is a way
of life.

The nature of mathematics

In the Figure 1.1 illustrated by Nocon and Nocon, it portrays the function of
mathematics. As shown, it is stated that mathematics is a set of problem-solving
tools. It provides answers to existing questions and presents solutions to occurring
problems. It has the power to unveil the reasons behind occurrences and it offers
explanations. Moreover, mathematics, as a study of patterns, allows people to
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observe, hypothesize, experiment, discover, and recreate. On the other hand,
mathematics is an art and a process of thinking. For it involves reasoning, which
can be inductive or deductive, and it applies methods of proof both in fashion
that is conventional and unventional.

Mathematics is Everywhere

We use mathematics in their daily tasks and activities. It is our important tool in
the field of sciences, humanities, literature, medicine, and even in music and arts;
it is in the rhythm of our daily activities, operational in our communities, and a
default system of our culture. There is mathematics wherever we go. It helps us
cook delicious meals by exacting our ability to measure and moderately control of
heat. It also helps us to shop wisely, read maps, use the computer, remodel a
home with constrained budget with utmost economy.

Source: Space Telescope Science/NASA

The Universe

Figure 1.2
 11

Even the cosmic perspective, the patterns in the firmament are always presented
as a mystery waiting to be uncovered by us-the sentient being. In order to
unearthed this mystery, we are challenged to investigate and deeply examine its
structure and rules to the infinitesimal level. The intertwined governing powers of
cosmic mystery can only be decoded by seriously observing and studying their
regularities, and patiently waiting for the signature of some kind interference. It is
only by observing the abundance of patterns scattered everywhere that this
irregularities will beg to be noticed. Some of them are boldly exposed in a simple
and obvious manner while others are hidden in ways that is impossible to
perceive by easy to discern. While our ancestors were able to discover the
presence of mathematics in everything, it took the descendants, us, a long time to
gradually notice the impact of these patterns in the persistence of our species to
rightfully exist.

The Essential Roles of Mathematics

Mathematics has countless hidden uses and applications. It is not only something
that delights our mind but it also allows us to learn and understand the natural
order of the world. This discipline was and is often studied as a pure science but it
also finds its place in other areas of perpetuating knowledge. Perhaps, science
would definitely agree that, when it comes to discovering and unveiling the truth
behind the inherent secrets and occurrences of the universe, nothing visual,
verbal, or aural come close to matching the accuracy, economy, power and
elegance of mathematics. Mathematics helps us to take the complex processes
that is naturally occuring in the world around us and it represents them by
utilizing logic to make things more organized and more efficient.

Further, mathematics also facilitate not only to weather, but also to control the
weather ---- be it social, natural, statistical, political, or medical. Applied

mathematics, which once only used for solving problems in physics, and it is also
becoming a useful tool in biological sciences: for instance, the spread of various
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diseases can now be predicted and controlled. Scientists and researchers use
applied mathematics in doing or performing researches to solve social, scientific,
medical, or even political crises.

It is a common fact that mathematics plays an important role in many sciences. It

is and it provides tools for calculations. We use of calculations in other disciplines
whenever we are underrating some kind of research or experiment. The use of
mathematical calculations is indispensable method in scientifically approaching
most of the problems. In a similar way, mathematics, provides new questions to
think about. Indeed, in learning and doing mathematics, there will always be new
questions to answer, new problems to solve, and new things to think about
(Vistru-Yu PPT presentation).

The Mathematical Landscape

The human mind and culture developed a conceptual landscape for mathematical
thoughts and ideas to flourish and propagate. There is a region in the human mind
that is capable of constructing and discerning the deepest insights being perceived
from the natural world. In this region, the mathematical landscape exists- wherein
concepts of numbers, symbols, equations, operations calculations, abstractions, and
proofs are the inhabitants as well as the constructs of the impenetrable vastness of
its unchartered territories. In this landscape, a number is not simply a mathematical
tree of counting. Also, infinite variables can be encapsulate to finite. Even those
something that is hard to express in decimal form can be expressed in terms of
fractions. Those things that seemed eternal ℤ can further be exploited using
mathematical operations. This landscape claimed complex numbers as the
firmament and even asserted that imaginary numbers also exist. To the low state
negative numbers relentlessly enjoying recognition as existent beings. The wind in
this landscape is unpredictable that the rate of change of the rate of change of
weather is known as calculus. And beneath the surface of this mathematical
landscape are firmly-woven proofs, theorems, definitions, and axioms which are

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intricately “fertilized” by reasoning, analytical, critical thinking and germicide by
mathematical logic that made them precise, exact and powerful.
With this landscape, the mathematician's instinct and curiosity entice to explore
further the vast tranquil lakes of functions and impassable crevasse of the
unchartered territories of abstract algebra. For to claim ownership is to
understand the ebb and flow of prime numbers. To predict the behavior of its
Fibonacci weather, to be amazed with awe and wonder the patternless chaos of
fractal clouds, and to rediscover that after all, the numbers in mathematics is not
a "thing" but a process. Conventionally, we are just simply made ourselves
comfortable on the “thingification” of those processes and we forgot that 1+1 is
not a noun but a verb.

How Mathematics is Done

Math is a way of thinking, and it is undeniably important to see how that thinking is
going to be developed rather than just merely see face value of the results. For some
people, few math theorems can bring up as much remembered pain and anxiety. For
others, this discipline is so complex and they have to understand the confusing
symbols, the difficult procedures, and the dreaded graphs and charts. For most,
mathematics is just nothing but something to survive, rather than to learn.

To the untrained eye, doing mathematics is quite difficult and challenging. It is

ambiguous, for it follows a set of patterns, formulas, and sequences that make it
more demanding to do and to learn. It is abstract and complex ---- and for these
reasons, a lot of people adopt the belief that they are not math people.

Mathematics builds upon itself. More complex concepts are built upon simpler
concepts, and if you do not have a strong grasp of the fundamental principles, then a
more complex problem is more likely going to stump you. If you come across a
mathematical problem that you cannot solve, the first thing to do is to identify the

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components or the operations that it wants you to carry out, and everything
follows. Doing and performing mathematics is not that simple. It is done with
curiosity, with a penchant for seeking patterns and generalities, with a desire to
know the truth, with trial and error, and without fear of facing more questions
and problems to solve. (Vistru-Yu)

Mathematics is for Everyone

The relationship of the mathematical landscape in the human mind with the natural
world is so strange that in the long run, the good math provides utilization and
usefulness in the order of things. Perhaps, for most people, they simply need to
know the basics of the mathematical operations in order to survive daily tasks; but
for the human society to survive and for the human species to persistently exist,
humanity needs, beyond rudiment of mathematics. To safeguard our existence, we
already have delegated the functions of mathematics across all disciplines. There is
mathematics we call pure and applied, as there are scientists we call social and
natural. There is mathematics for engineers to build, mathematics for commerce and
finance, mathematics for weather forecasting, mathematics that is related to health,
and mathematics to harness energy for utilization. To simply put it, everyone uses
mathematics in different degrees and levels. Everyone uses mathematics, whoever
they are, wherever they are, and whenever they need to. From mathematicians to
scientists, from professionals to ordinary people, they all use mathematics. For
mathematics puts order amidst disorder. It helps us become better persons and
helps make the world a better place to live in. (Vistru-Yu).

The Importance of Knowing and Learning Mathematics

Why do we want to observe and describe patterns and regularities? Why do we

want to understand the physical phenomena governing our world? Why do we
want to dig out rules and structures that lie behind patterns of the natural order?
It is because those rules and structures explain what is going on. It is because they

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are beneficial in generating conclusions and in predicting events. It is because
they provide clues. The clues that make us realize that interference in the motion
of heavenly bodies can predict lunar eclipse, solar eclipse as well as comets’
appearances. That the position of the sun and the moon relative to the earth can
predict high tide and low tide events affecting human activities. And that human
activities need clues for the human culture to meaningfully work.

Mathematical training is vital to decipher the clues provided by nature. But the role
of mathematics goes clues and it goes beyond prediction. Once we understand how
the system works, our goal is to control it to make it do what we want. We want to
understand the mathematical pattern of a storm to avoid or prevent catastrophes.
We want to know the mathematical concept behind the contagion of the virus to
control its spread. We want to understand the unpredictability of cancer cells to
combat it before it even exists. Finally, we want to understand the butterfly effect as
much as we are so curious to know why the “die” of the physical world play god.

“Whatever the reasons, mathematics is a useful way to think about nature.

What does it want to tell us about the patterns we observe? There are many
answers. We want to understand how they happen; to understand why they
happen, which is different; to organize the underlying patterns and
regularities in the most satisfying way; to predict how nature will behave; to
control nature for our own ends; to make practical use of what we have
learned about our world. Mathematics helps us to do all these things, and
often, it is indispensable.“ [Stewart]
 Lesson

1.2

Specific Objective

: 1. To develop one’s understanding about patterns;

2. To identify different patterns in nature;

3. To recognize different symmetries in nature; and

4. To explain the presence of Fibonacci numbers in nature

The mathematics in our world is rooted in patterns. Patterns are all around us.
Finding and understanding patterns give us great power to play like god. With
patterns, we can discover and understand new things; we learn to predict and
ultimately control the future for our own advantage.

A pattern is a structure, form, or design that is regular, consistent, or recurring.

Patterns can be found in nature, in human-made designs, or in abstract ideas.
They occur in different contexts and various forms. Because patterns are
repetitive and duplicative, their underlying structure regularities can be modelled
mathematically. In general sense, any regularity that can be explained
mathematically is a pattern. Thus, an investigation of nature’s patterns is an
investigation of nature’s numbers. This means that the relationships can be
observed, that logical connections can be established, that generalizations can be
inferred, that future events can be predicted, and that control can possibly be
possible.

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Discussions

Different Kinds of Pattern

As we look at the world around us, we can sense the orchestrating great regularity
and diversity of living and non-living things. The symphonies vary from tiny to
gigantic, from simple to complex, and from dull to the bright. The kaleidoscope of
patterns is everywhere, and they make the nature look only fascinating but also
intriguing. Paradoxically, it seemed that everything in the world follows a pattern of
their own and tamed by the same time pattern of their own.

Patterns of Visuals. Visual patterns are often unpredictable, never quite

repeatable, and often contain fractals. These patterns are can be seen from the
seeds and pinecones to the branches and leaves. They are also visible in self-
similar replication of trees, ferns, and plants throughout nature.

Patterns of Flow. The flow of liquids provides an inexhaustible supply of nature’s

patterns. Patterns of flow are usually found in the water, stone, and even in the
growth of trees. There is also a flow pattern present in meandering rivers with the
repetition of undulating lines.

Patterns of Movement. In the human walk, the feet strike the ground in a regular
rhythm: the left-right-left-right-left rhythm. When a horse, a four-legged creature
walks, there is more of a complex but equally rhythmic pattern. This prevalence of
pattern in locomotion extends to the scuttling of insects, the flights of birds, the
pulsations of jellyfish, and the wave-like movements of fish, worms, and snakes.

Patterns of Rhythm. Rhythm is conceivably the most basic pattern in nature. Our
hearts and lungs follow a regular repeated pattern of sounds or movement whose
timing is adapted to our body’s needs. Many of nature’s rhythms are most likely

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similar to a heartbeat, while others are like breathing. The beating of the heart, as
well as breathing, have a default pattern.

Patterns of Texture. A texture is a quality of a certain object that we sense

through touch. It exists as a literal surface that we can feel, see, and imagine.
Textures are of many kinds. It can be bristly, and rough, but it can also be smooth,
cold, and hard.

Geometric Patterns. A geometric pattern is a kind of pattern which consists of a

series of shapes that are typically repeated. These are regularities in the natural
world that are repeated in a predictable manner. Geometrical patterns are usually
visible on cacti and succulents.

Patterns Found in Nature

Common patterns appear in nature, just like what we see when we look closely at
plants, flowers, animals, and even at our bodies. These common patterns are all
incorporated in many natural things.

Waves and Dunes

A wave is any form of disturbance that carries energy as it moves. Waves are of
different kinds: mechanical waves which propagate through a medium ---- air or
water, making it oscillate as waves pass by. Wind waves, on the other hand, are

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surface waves that create the chaotic patterns of the sea. Similarly, water waves
are created by energy passing through water causing it to move in a circular
motion. Likewise, ripple patterns and dunes are formed by sand wind as they pass
over the sand.

Spots and Stripes

We can see patterns like spots on the skin of a giraffe. On the other hand, stripes
are visible on the skin of a zebra. Patterns like spots and stripes that are
commonly present in different organisms are results of a reaction-diffusion
system. The size and the shape of the pattern depend on how fast the chemicals
diffuse and how strongly they interact.

Spirals

Jean Beaufort has released this “Spiral

Galaxy” image under Public Domain license

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The spiral patterns exist on the scale of the cosmos to the minuscule forms of
microscopic animals on earth. The Milky Way that contains our Solar System is a
barred spiral galaxy with a band of bright stars emerging from the center running
across the middle of it. Spiral patterns are also common and noticeable among
plants and some animals. Spirals appear in many plants such as pinecones,
pineapples, and sunflowers. On the other hand, animals like ram and kudu also
have spiral patterns on their horns.

Symmetries

In mathematics, if a figure can be folded or divided into two with two halves
which are the same, such figure is called a symmetric figure. Symmetry has a vital
role in pattern formation. It is used to classify and organize information about
patterns by classifying the motion or deformation of both pattern structures and
processes. There are many kinds of symmetry, and the most important ones are
reflections, rotations, and translations. These kinds of symmetries are less
formally called flips, turns, and slides.

Reflection symmetry, sometimes called line symmetry or mirror symmetry,

captures symmetries when the left half of a pattern is the same as the right half.

Rotations, also known as rotational symmetry, captures symmetries when it still

looks the same after some rotation (of less than one full turn). The degree of
rotational symmetry of an object is recognized by the number of distinct
orientations in which it looks the same for each rotation.
Translations. This is another type of symmetry. Translational symmetry exists in
patterns that we see in nature and in man-made objects. Translations acquire

symmetries when units are repeated and turn out having identical figures, like the
bees’ honeycomb with hexagonal tiles.
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 Symmetries in Nature

From the structure of subatomic particles to that of the entire universe, symmetry
is present. The presence of symmetries in nature does not only attract our visual
sense, but also plays an integral and prominent role in the way our life works.

Human Body
Animal Movement
The human body is one of the pieces
The symmetry of motion is present in
of evidence that there is symmetry in
animal movements. When animals
nature. Our body exhibits bilateral
move, we can see that their
symmetry. It can be divided into two movements also exhibit symmetry.
identical halves.

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Sunflower ring of the sunflower is a cluster of
radially symmetrical disk florets.
One of the most interesting things
about a sunflower is that it contains
both radial and bilateral symmetry.
What appears to be "petals" in the
outer ring are actually small flowers
also known as ray florets. These small
flowers are bilaterally symmetrical.
On the other hand, the dark inner
 Snowflakes
Honeycombs/Beehive Snowflakes have six-fold radial
Honeycombs or beehives are symmetry. The ice crystals that
examples of wallpaper symmetry. This make-up the snowflakes are
kind of symmetry is created when a symmetrical or patterned. The
pattern is repeated until it covers a intricate shape of a single arm of a
plane. Beehives are made of walls snowflake is very much similar to the
with each side having the same size other arms. This only proves that
enclosed with small hexagonal cells. symmetry is present in a snowflake.
Inside these cells, honey and pollen
are stored and bees are raised.

Starfish

Starfish have a radial fivefold symmetry. Each arm portion of the starfish is
identical to each of the other regions.
Fibonacci in Nature

By learning about nature, it becomes gradually evident that the nature is

essentially mathematical, and this is one of the reasons why explaining nature is
dependent on mathematics. Mathematics has the power to unveil the inherent
beauty of the natural world.

In describing the amazing variety of phenomena in nature we stumble to discover

the existence of Fibonacci numbers. It turns out that the Fibonacci numbers
appear from the smallest up to the biggest objects in the natural world. This
presence of Fibonacci numbers in nature, which was once existed realm
mathematician’s curiously, is considered as one of the biggest mysteries why the
some patterns in nature is Fibonacci. But one thing is definitely made certain, and
that what seemed solely mathematical is also natural.

For instance, many flowers display figures adorned with numbers of petals that are in
the Fibonacci sequence. The classic five-petal flowers are said to be the most

common among them. These include the buttercup, columbine, and hibiscus.
Aside from those flowers with five petals, eight-petal flowers like clematis and
delphinium also have the Fibonacci numbers, while ragwort and marigold have
thirteen. These numbers are all Fibonacci numbers.

Apart from the counts of flower petals, the Fibonacci also occurs in nautilus shells
with a logarithmic spiral growth. Multiple Fibonacci spirals are also present in
pineapples and red cabbages. The patterns are all consistent and natural.
LESSON 1.3 FIBONACCI SEQUENCE

Discussion

Sequence

Sequence refers to an ordered list of numbers called terms, that may have
repeated values. The arrangement of these terms is set by a definite rule.
th
(Mathematics in the Modern World, 14 Edition, Aufmann, RN. et al.).
Cosider the given below example:

1
, 3, 5, 7, …
(1stte
rm) (2nd term) (3rd term) (4th term)

As shown above, the elements in the sequence are called terms. It is called
sequence because the list is ordered and it follows a certain kind of pattern
that must be recognized in order to see the expanse. The three dots at the
end of the visible patterns means that the sequence is infinite.

There are different types of sequence and the most common are the
arithmetic sequence, geometric sequence, harmonic sequence, and
Fibonacci sequence.

Arithmetic sequence. It is a sequence of numbers that follows a definite

pattern. To determine if the series of numbers follow an arithmetic
sequence, check the difference between two consecutive terms. If common
difference is observed, then definitely arithmetic sequence governed the
pattern. To clearly illustrate the arrangement, consider the example below:

2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 …

2 2 2 2 2
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Notice in the given example above, the common difference between two
consecutive terms in the sequence is two. The common difference is the
clue that must be figure out in a pattern in order to recognize it as an
arithmetic sequence.

Geometric sequence. If in the arithmetic sequence we need to check for the

common difference, in geometric sequence we need to look for the common
ratio. The illustrated in the example below, geometric sequence is not as
obvious as the arithmetic sequence. All possibilities must be explored until
some patterns of uniformity can intelligently be struck. At first it may
seemed like pattern less but only by digging a little bit deeper that we can
finally delve the constancy. That is 2
,
8
,
32
, … generate 4, 4, 4,…

8 32 128,

2, 8, 32, 128, …

4 4 4

Harmonic Sequence. In the sequence, the reciprocal of the terms behaved in

a manner like arithmetic sequence. Consider the example below and notice
an interesting pattern in the series. With this pattern, the reciprocal appears
like arithmetic sequence. Only in recognizing the appearance that we can
finally decode the sequencing the govern the series.
1 1 1 1 1
2, 4, 6, 8, 10 , …

Fibonacci Sequence. This specific sequence was named after an Italian

mathematician Leonardo Pisano Bigollo (1170 - 1250). He discovered the
sequence while he was studying rabbits. The Fibonacci sequence is a series

of numbers governed by some unusual arithmetic rule. The sequence is

organized in a way a number can be obtained by adding the two previous
numbers.
 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21,
…

0+1=1 0,1,1
1+1=2 0,1,1,2
1+2=3 0,1,1,2,3
2+3=5 0,1,1,2,3,5

th
Notice that the number 2 is actually the sum of 1 and 1. Also the 5 term
which is number 5 is based on addition of the two previous terms 2, and 3.
That is the kind of pattern being generated by the Fibonacci sequence. It is
infinite in expanse and it was once purely maintained claim as a
mathematical and mental exercise but later on the it was observed that the
ownership of this pattern was also being claimed by some species of
flowers, petals, pineapple, pine cone, cabbages and some shells.

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, …

To explore a little bit more about the Fibonacci sequence, the location of
the term was conventionally tagged as Fib( ). This means that Fib(1)=1,
Fib(2)=1, Fib(3)=2 and Fib(4)=3. In this method, the Fib( ) is actually
referring to the the th term of the sequence. It is also possible to make
some sort of addition in this sequence. For instance:

Fib (2) + Fib (6) = _?__

nd
Fib(2) refers to the 2 term in the sequence which is “1”. And Fib(6) refers
th
to the 6 term which is “8”. So, the answer to that equation is simply “9”

Formula for computing for the nth term in the Fibonacci Sequence

xn = φn − (1−φ)n
 Where:
Xn stands for the Fibonacci number we’re looking for
N stands for the position of the number in the Fibonacci sequence
Φ stands for the value of the golden ratio
th
Let us try for example: What is the 5 Fibonacci number? By using the formula
we’ll get:
5 5
X5 = (1.618) − (1−1.618)

√5

X5= 5

The amazing grandeur of Fibonacci sequence was also discovered in the

structure of Golden rectangle. The golden rectangle is made up of
squares whose sizes, surprisingly is also behaving similar to the Fibonacci
sequence. Take a serious look at the figure:

The Golden Ratio

As we can see in the figure, there is no complexity in forming a spiral with

the use of the golden rectangle starting from one of the sides of the first
Fibonacci square going to the edges of each of the next squares. This
golden rectangle shows that the Fibonacci sequence is not only about
sequence of numbers of some sort but it is also a geometric sequence
observing a rectangle ratio. The spiral line generated by the ratio is
generously scattered around from infinite to infinitesimal.