Unit I MMW
Unit I MMW
Unit I MMW
Overview
Mathematics is the study of the relationships among numbers, quantities and shapes. It
includes arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, geometry, statistics and calculus. Mathematics
nurtures human characteristics like power of creativity, reasoning, critical thinking and others. It
provides the opportunity to solve both simple and complex problems in many real-world
contexts using a variety of strategies. Mathematics is a universal way to make sense of the
world and to communicate understanding of concepts and rules using the mathematical
symbols, signs, proofs, language and conventions. Mathematics helps organize patterns and
regularities in the world. The geometry of most patterns in nature can be associated, either
directly or indirectly, to mathematical numbers. Mathematics helps predict behavior of nature
and phenomena in the world. It helps control nature and occurrences in the world for the good
of the mankind. Because of its numerous applications, mathematics becomes indispensable.
Mathematics, being a science of patterns, helps students to utilize, recognize and generalize
patterns that exist in numbers, in shapes and in the world around them. Students with such
skills are better problem solvers, and have a better sense and appreciation of nature and the
world. Hence, they should have opportunities to analyze, synthesize and create a variety of
patterns and to use pattern-based thinking to understand and represent mathematical and
other real-world phenomena. These explorations present unlimited opportunities for problem
solving, verifying generalizations and building mathematical and scientific competence.
Learning Objectives:
At the end of this lesson, you are expected to:
Lesson Proper
Patterns in Nature
Pattern that you can see in nature are visible regularities or form found in the natural
world. These patters persist in different contexts and can sometimes be demonstrated
mathematically. These include symmetries, trees, spirals, meanders, waves, foams, tessellations,
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cracks and stripes .
Living things like plants and animals such as orchids, hummingbirds and peacock’s tail
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have abstract designs with a beauty of form, pattern and color that artists struggle to match .
The beauty that people perceive in nature has causes at different levels notably in he
mathematics that governs what patters can physically form, and among living things in the
effects of natural selection, that govern how patterns evolve.
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Mathematics seeks to discover and explain abstract patterns or regularities of all kinds .
Visual patterns in nature find explanations in chaos theory, fractals, logarithmic spirals, topology
and other mathematical patterns. In Biology, natural selection can cause the development of
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patterns in living things for several reasons, including camouflage , sexual selection and
different signaling, including mimicry and cleaning symbiosis. In plants, the shapes, colors and
patterns of insect-pollinated flowers like the gumamela (Hibiscus rosasinensis Linn.) have
evolved to attract insects such as bees. Radial patterns of colors and stripes, some visible only
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in ultraviolet rays serve as nectar guides that can be seen at a distance .
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Types of Pattern
Symmetry
Symmetry is general in all living organisms. Animals mainly have bilateral or mirror
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symmetry, as do the leaves of the 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 echinoderms, the group that includes
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starfish, sea urchins and sea lilies .
Among non-living things, snowflakes have striking six-fold symmetry. Each flake’s
structure forms a record of the varying conditions during its crystallization, with nearly
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the same patter of growth on each of its six arms .
Trees, fractals
animals including bryozoan, corals, hydrozoa, and others. Fractal-like patterns occur
widely in nature, in phenomena as diverse as clouds, river networks, fault lines, mountains,
coastlines, animal coloration, snow flakes, crystals, blood vessel branching, actin
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cytoskeleton, and ocean waves .
Spirals
Spiral symmetry is also largely present in nature. To name a few, we find spirals in
sunflowers, nautilus shells, snail shells, and weather patterns. A spiral is formed because
of a property of growth known as self-similarity, which means that the same shape is
maintained as the creature grows.
Figure 7. Sunflower
Source: https://www.treehugger.com/nature-blows-my-mind-hypnotic-patterns-
sunflowers-4859272
Chaos, meanders, flow
Chaos, meanders and flow have simple patterns in nature with a chaotic behavior,
whirling patterns and the like. Meanders are sinuous bends in rivers or other channels,
which form a fluid, most often water, flows around bends. As soon as the path is slightly
curved, the size of the curvature of each loop increases as helical flow drags material like
sand and gravel across the river to the inside of the bend.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Textile_cone_(cropped).JPG
Wave, dunes
Waves are disturbances that carry energy as they move. As waves in water or wind
pass over sand, they create patters of ripples. When winds blow over large bodies of
sand, they create dunes.
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Bubbles, foam
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A soap bubble forms a sphere, a surface with minimal area – the smallest possible
surface area for the volume enclosed. Foam is a mass of bubbles; foams of different
materials occur in nature. At the scale of living cells, foam patterns are common;
radiolarians, sponge spicules, silicoflagellate exoskeletons and calcite skeleton of a sea
urchin.
Tessellations
Cracks
Cracks are linear openings that form in materials to relieve stress. When an elastic
material stretches or shrinks uniformly, it eventually reaches its breaking strength and
then fails suddenly in all directions, creating cracks with 120 degrees joints, so three
cracks meet at a node. The pattern of cracks indicates whether the material is elastic or
not.
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Spots, stripes
Leopards and ladybirds are spotted; anglefish and zebras are striped. These
patterns have an evolutionary explanation: they have functions, which increase the chance
that the offspring of the patterned animal will survive to reproduce. One function of
animal pattern is camouflaging, for example, a leopard that us harder to see catches
more prey. Another function is signaling – for instance, a ladybird is less likely to be
attacked by predatory birds that hunt by sight, if it has bold warning colors, and is also
distastefully bitter or poisonous, or mimics other distasteful insects.
Numbers in Nature
We have seen that patterns are everywhere in nature. But do you know that some of
these patterns can be explained mathematically? Yes, there is a link between mathematics and
some patterns found in nature. The Fibonacci sequence, for example, appears very often in
flowers, such as in the number of petals, the arrangement of seeds, or in the arrangement of
leaves around a stem.
Below are sunflower seed pattern. You can easily spot two families of spirals, one
running counter-clockwise and one running clockwise direction. The number of spirals is 34 and
55, respectively. Some sunflowers have 21 and 24 spirals; some have 55 and 89 or 89 and 144
depending on the species. Notice that such a pair of number of spirals actually forms two
consecutive numbers of the Fibonacci sequence.
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Another example in which we can find Fibonacci numbers in nature is in the number of
petals different flowers have. Some lilies and iris have three petals, gumamela and calachuchi
have five, some variety of sampaguita has eight, corn marigolds have 11, and some daisies have
34, 55 or even 89 petals. Fibonacci numbers also appear in the arrangement of leaves and
branches in some plants.
Nature is full of shapes and patterns. Look closely to things around you such as flowers,
trees, animals, rocks, rivers, etc. Try to search for patterns so that you may be able to find
mathematical correlations to this.
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References
The following are the references used to discuss several pieces of information in the discussion.
References are based on the order of appearance or citation, not in alphabetical order. Sources
for figures used in this module are cited below the figures.