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UNIT 1. THE NATURE OF MATHEMATICS

1.0 Learning Outcomes

On completion of the module, you should be able to:

1. identify the patterns in nature and articulate the importance of mathematics

in one’s life; and
2. solve problems involving Fibonacci Sequence.

1.1 Introduction
Have you gone into the woods? Have you experienced walking along the beaches? Run or
jogged around a public park or took a walk with your favourite pet in a garden? Will you
agree with me that these places reveal an unending variation of forms in nature? They not
only delight your imagination but also challenge your understanding. How did these
patterns develop? What are the rules and guidelines used to create the patterns of the things
that surround you? Some patterns are molded with strict regularity while others are with
unexplained irregularity. All these may increase your curiosity to find the answers for the
existence of these patterns in nature and in fact many theories have been proposed as an
attempt to do so. As students in mathematics in the modern world, you need to look deeply
into the geometry and mechanism of the patterns in living and non-living things in your
environment. Let us start our lesson with these types of patterns in nature.

The “You try this” section of the module should be answered. This will be
submitted to me for checking. It will serve as your grade in the participation.
So, you must answer all of them.

1.2 The Nature of Mathematics

1.2.1 Types of Pattern in Nature

Patterns in nature can be seen in our environment. These patterns occur in different forms
and can be modelled mathematically. Natural patterns include the following:
1. symmetry, 2. trees & fractals, 3. spirals, 4. chaos, flow & meanders, 5. waves and dunes,
6. bubbles & foam, 7. tessellations, 8. cracks, 9. spots & stripes, and 10. pattern formation.
Let us discuss them one by one.

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1. Symmetry

Symmetry is pervasive in living things. Animals mainly have bilateral or mirror symmetry,
as do the leaves of 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 the echinoderms, the group that includes starfish, sea urchins,
and sea lilies. Among non-living things, snowflakes have striking sixfold symmetry; each
flake's structure forms a record of the varying conditions during its crystallization, with
nearly the same pattern of growth on each of its six arms. Crystals in general have a variety
of symmetries and crystal habits; they can be cubic or octahedral, but true crystals cannot
have fivefold symmetry (unlike quasicrystals). Rotational symmetry is 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.
Symmetry has a variety of causes. Radial symmetry suits organisms like sea anemones whose
adults do not move: food and threats may arrive from any direction. But 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 specialised with a mouth and sense organs (cephalisation),
and the body becomes bilaterally symmetric (though internal organs need not be). More
puzzling is the reason for the fivefold (pentaradiate) symmetry of the echinoderms. Early
echinoderms were bilaterally symmetrical, as their larvae still are. Sumrall and Wray argue

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that the loss of the old symmetry had both developmental and ecological causes. Below are
examples of symmetry.

2. Trees, fractals

Fractals are infinitely self-similar, iterated mathematical constructs having fractal dimension.
Infinite iteration is not possible in nature so all 'fractal' patterns are only approximate. For
example, the leaves of ferns and umbellifers (Apiaceae) are only selfsimilar (pinnate) to 2, 3
or 4 levels. Fern-like growth patterns occur in plants and in animals including bryozoa,
corals, hydrozoa like the air fern, Sertularia argentea, and in non-living things, notably
electrical discharges.

Lindenmayer system fractals can model different patterns of tree growth by varying a small
number of parameters including branching angle, distance between nodes or branch points
(internode length), and number of branches per branch point.

Animals Sea Water splash Echinoderms Snowflakes

often show anemones approximates like this have sixfold
mirror or have radial starfish have symmetry.
bilateral rotational symmetry. fivefold
symmetry, symmetry. symmetry.
like this
tiger.

Fivefold
Garnet
symmetry can Volvox has
showing
Fluorite showing be seen in spherical symmetry.
rhombic
cubic crystal habit. many flowers
dodecahedral
and some fruits
crystal habit.
like this
medlar.

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Fractal-like patterns occur widely in nature, in phenomena as diverse as clouds, river

networks, geologic fault lines, mountains, coastlines, animal coloration, snow flakes, crystals,
blood vessel branching, actin cytoskeleton, and ocean waves.

Leaf of cow parsley, Anthriscus

sylvestris, is 2 - or 3 -pinnate, not Angelica flowerhead, a sphere made
infinite. of spheres (self-similar)

Here are some examples of trees and fractals

3. Spirals

Spirals are common in plants and in some animals, notably molluscs. For example, in the
nautilus, a cephalopod mollusc, each chamber of its shell is an approximate copy of the next
one, scaled by a constant factor and arranged in a logarithmic spiral. Given a modern
understanding of fractals, a growth spiral can be seen as a special case of self-similarity. Plant
spirals can be seen in phyllotaxis, the arrangement of leaves on a stem, and in the
arrangement (parastichy) of other parts as in composite flower heads and seed heads like the
sunflower or fruit structures like the pineapple and snake fruit, as well as in the pattern of
scales in pine cones, where multiple spirals run both clockwise and anticlockwise. These
arrangements have explanations at different levels – mathematics, physics, chemistry,
biology – each individually correct, but all necessary together. Phyllotaxis spirals can be
generated mathematically from Fibonacci ratios: the Fibonacci sequence runs 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8,
13... (each subsequent number being the sum of the two preceding ones). For example, when
leaves alternate up a stem, one rotation of the spiral touches two leaves, so the pattern or
ratio is 1/2. In hazel the ratio is 1/3; in apricot it is 2/5; in pear it is 3/8; in almond it is 5/13.
In disc phyllotaxis as in the sunflower and daisy, the florets are arranged in Fermat's spiral
with Fibonacci numbering, at least when the flowerhead is mature so all the elements are the
same size. Fibonacci ratios approximate the golden angle, 137.508°, which governs the
curvature of Fermat's spiral.

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From the point of view of physics, spirals are lowest-energy configurations which emerge
spontaneously through self-organizing processes in dynamic systems.
From the point of view of chemistry, a spiral can be generated by a reaction-diffusion process,
involving both activation and inhibition. Phyllotaxis is controlled by proteins that
manipulate the concentration of the plant hormone auxin, which activates meristem growth,
alongside other mechanisms to control the relative angle of buds around the stem. From a
biological perspective, arranging leaves as far apart as possible in any given space is favoured
by natural selection as it maximises access to resources, especially sunlight for
photosynthesis.

Take a look at these examples of spirals!

Fibonacci Bighorn sheep, Spirals: Nautilus shell's Fermat's

spiral Ovis phyllotaxis of logarithmic spiral: seed
canadensis spiral aloe, growth spiral head of
Aloe sunflower,
polyphylla Helianthus
annuus

Multiple Spiralling Water

Fibonacci shell of
spirals: red droplets fly
Trochoidea off a wet,
cabbage in
liebetruti
cross section spinning ball

4. Chaos, flow, meanders

In mathematics, a dynamical system is chaotic if it is (highly) sensitive to initial conditions

(the so-called "butterfly effect", which requires the mathematical properties of topological
mixing and dense periodic orbits. Alongside fractals, chaos theory ranks as an essentially

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universal influence on patterns in nature. There is a relationship between chaos and

fractals—the strange attractors in chaotic systems have a fractal dimension. Some cellular
automata, simple sets of mathematical rules that generate patterns, have chaotic behaviour,
notably Stephen Wolfram's Rule 30. Vortex streets are zigzagging patterns of whirling
vortices created by the unsteady separation of flow of a fluid, most often air or water, over
obstructing objects. Smooth (laminar) flow starts to break up when the size of the obstruction
or the velocity of the flow become large enough compared to the viscosity of the fluid.
Meanders are sinuous bends in rivers or other channels, which form as a fluid, most often
water, flows around bends. As soon as the path is slightly curved, the size and curvature of
each loop increases as helical flow drags material like sand and gravel across the river to the
inside of the bend. The outside of the loop is left clean and unprotected, so erosion
accelerates, further increasing the meandering in a powerful positive feedback loop.

Examples of chaos, flow, and meanders are found below.

Chaos: shell of Meanders: dramatic meander

Chaos: vortex
gastropod mollusc the scars and oxbow lakes in the
cloth of gold cone, street of clouds
broad flood plain of the Rio
Conus textile,
resembles Rule 30 Negro, seen from space
cellular automaton.

Meanders: sinuous Meanders: sinuous Meanders: symmetrical

path of Rio Cauto, snake crawling. brain coral, Diploria
Cuba strigosa

5. Waves, dunes

Waves are disturbances that carry energy as they move. Mechanical waves propagate
through a medium – air or water, making it oscillate as they pass by. Wind waves are sea
surface waves that create the characteristic chaotic pattern of any large body of water, though
their statistical behaviour can be predicted with wind wave models. As waves in water or

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wind pass over sand, they create patterns of ripples. When winds blow over large bodies of
sand, they create dunes, sometimes in extensive dune fields as in the Taklamakan desert.
Dunes may form a range of patterns including crescents, very long straight lines, stars,
domes, parabolas, and longitudinal or seif ('sword') shapes. Here are some examples:

Waves: Dunes: sand Dunes: barchan Wind ripples with

dunes in crescent sand dislocations
breaking wave
Taklamakan dune In Sistan,
in a ship's
desert, from Afghanistan
wake
space

6. Bubbles, foam

A soap bubble forms a sphere, a surface with minimal area — the smallest possible surface
area for the volume enclosed. Two bubbles together form a more complex shape: the outer
surfaces of both bubbles are spherical; these surfaces are joined by a third spherical surface
as the smaller bubble bulges slightly into the larger one.

A foam is a mass of bubbles; foams of different materials occur in nature. Foams composed
of soap films obey Plateau's laws, which require three soap films to meet at each edge at 120°
and four soap edges to meet at each vertex at the tetrahedral angle of about 109.5°. Plateau's
laws further require films to be smooth and continuous, and to have a constant average
curvature at every point. For example, a film may remain nearly flat on average by being
curved up in one direction (say, left to right) while being curved downwards in another
direction (say, front to back). Structures with minimal surfaces can be used as tents.

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Examples of these bubbles and foams are found below:

Foam of soap Haeckel's

bubbles: four edges Radiolaria
Spumellaria; the Buckminsterfullerene:
meet at each vertex, drawn by
skeletons of Richard Smalley and
at angles close to Haeckel in his
these Radiolaria colleagues synthesised
109.5°, as in two C- Kunstformen der
have foam-like the fullerene molecule
H bonds in methane. Natur (1904).
forms. in 1985.

Brochosomes (secretory
microparticles produced Beijing's National Aquatics
Equal spheres
by leafhoppers) often Center for the 2008 Olympic
(gas bubbles) in
approximate fullerene games has a Weaire–Phelan
a surface foam.
geometry. structure.

7. Tessellations

Tessellations are patterns formed by repeating tiles all over a flat surface. There are 17
wallpaper groups of tilings. While common in art and design, exactly repeating tilings are
less easy to find in living things. The cells in the paper nests of social wasps, and the wax
cells in honeycomb built by honey bees are well-known examples. Among animals, bony
fish, reptiles or the pangolin, or fruits like the salak are protected by overlapping scales or
osteoderms, these form more-or-less exactly repeating units, though often the scales in fact
vary continuously in size. Among flowers, the snake's head fritillary, Fritillaria meleagris,
have a tessellated chequerboard pattern on their petals. The structures of minerals provide
good examples of regularly repeating three-dimensional arrays. Despite the hundreds of
thousands of known minerals, there are rather few possible types of arrangement of atoms
in a crystal, defined by crystal structure, crystal system, and point group; for example, there
are exactly 14 Bravais lattices for the 7 lattice systems in three-dimensional space.

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Crystals: cube-shaped Tilings: tessellated

Arrays: Bismuth hopper
crystals of halite (rock flower of snake's
honeycomb crystal illustrating
salt); cubic crystal head fritillary,
system, isometric is a natural the stairstep
Fritillaria meleagris
hexoctahedral crystal tessellation crystal habit.
symmetry.

Tilings: overlapping scales

Tessellated pavement: a
of common roach, Rutilus
rare rock formation on the
rutilus
Tasman Peninsula

Examples of tessellations are as follow;

8. 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 degree joints, so three cracks meet at a
node. Conversely, when an inelastic material fails, straight cracks form to relieve the stress.
Further stress in the same direction would then simply open the existing cracks; stress at
right angles can create new cracks, at 90 degrees to the old ones. Thus the pattern of cracks
indicates whether the material is elastic or not. In a tough fibrous material like oak tree bark,
cracks form to relieve stress as usual, but they do not grow long as their growth is interrupted
by bundles of strong elastic fibres. Since each species of tree has its own structure at the levels
of cell and of molecules, each has its own pattern of splitting in its bark. Take a look at these
examples of cracks:

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Old pottery
surface, white Drying inelastic
glaze with mud in the Rann
mainly 90° of Kutch with Veined gabbro
cracks mainly 90° cracks with 90° cracks,
near Sgurr na Stri,
Skye

Cooled basalt at
Drying elastic Giant's Causeway.
mud in Sicily with Vertical mainly
mainly 120° 120° cracks Palm trunk with
cracks giving hexagonal branching vertical
columns cracks (and
horizontal leaf
9. Spots, stripes

Leopards and ladybirds are spotted; angelfish and zebras are stripe. These patterns have an
evolutionary explanation: they have functions which increase the chances that the offspring
of the patterned animal will survive to reproduce. One function of animal patterns is
camouflage; for instance, a leopard that is harder to see catches more prey. Another function
is signalling— for instance, a ladybird is less likely to be attacked by predatory birds that
hunt by sight, if it has bold warning colours, and is also distastefully bitter or poisonous, or
mimics other distasteful insects. A young bird may see a warning patterned insect like a
ladybird and try to eat it, but it will only do this once; very soon it will spit out the bitter
insect; the other ladybirds in the area will remain undisturbed. The young leopards and
ladybirds, inheriting genes that somehow create spottedness, survive. But while these
evolutionary and functional arguments explain why these animals need their patterns, they
do not explain how the patterns are formed. Here are some examples:

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Grevy's zebr a, Array of Breeding pattern

Equus grevyi ladybird s by of cuttlefis h,
G.G. Sepia officinalis
Jacobso n

10. Pattern formation

Alan Turin, and later the mathematical biologist James Murray, described a mechanism that
spontaneously creates spotted or striped patterns: a reaction-diffusion system. The cells of a
young organism have genes that can be switched on by a chemical signal, a morphogen,
resulting in the growth of a certain type of structure, say a darkly pigmented patch of skin.
If the morphogen is present everywhere, the result is an even pigmentation, as in a black
leopard. But if it is unevenly distributed, spots or stripes can result. Turing suggested that
there could be feedback control of the production of the morphogen itself. This could cause
continuous fluctuations in the amount of morphogen as it diffused around the body. A
second mechanism is needed to create standing wave patterns (to result in spots or stripes):
an inhibitor chemical that switches off production of the morphogen, and that itself diffuses
through the body more quickly than the morphogen, resulting in an activator-inhibitor
scheme. The Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction is a non-biological example of this kind of
scheme, a chemical oscillator. Later research has managed to create convincing models of
patterns as diverse as zebra stripes, giraffe blotches, jaguar spots (medium-dark patches
surrounded by dark broken rings) and ladybird shell patterns (different geometrical layouts
of spots and stripes, see illustrations. Richard Prum's activation-inhibition models,
developed from Turing's work, use six variables to account for the observed range of nine
basic within-feather pigmentation patterns, from the simplest, a central pigment patch, via
concentric patches, bars, chevrons, eye spot, pair of central spots, rows of paired spots and
an array of dot. More elaborate models simulate complex feather patterns in the guineafowl
Numida meleagris in which the individual feathers feature transitions from bars at the base
to an array of dots at the far (distal) end. These require an oscillation created by two inhibiting
signals, with interactions in both space and time. Patterns can form for other reasons in the
vegetated landscape of tiger bush and fir waves. Tiger bush stripes occur on arid slopes
where plant growth is limited by rainfall. Each roughly horizontal stripe of vegetation
effectively collects the rainwater from the bare zone immediately above it. Fir waves occur
in forests on mountain slopes after wind disturbance, during regeneration. When trees fall,
the trees that they had sheltered become exposed and are in turn more likely to be damaged,
so gaps tend to expand downwind. Meanwhile, on the windward side, young trees grow,

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protected by the wind shadow of the remaining tall trees. Natural patterns are sometimes
formed by animals, as in the Mima mounds of the Northwestern United States and some
other areas, which appear to be created over many years by the burrowing activities of pocket
gophers, while the so-called fairy circles of Namibia appear to be created by the interaction
of competing groups of sand termites, along with competition for water among the desert
plant. In permafrost soils with an active upper layer subject to annual freeze and thaw,
patterned ground can form, creating circles, nets, ice wedge polygons, steps, and stripes.
Thermal contraction causes shrinkage cracks to form; in a thaw, water fills the cracks,
expanding to form ice when next frozen, and widening the cracks into wedges. These cracks
may join up to form polygons and other shapes. The fissured pattern that develops on
vertebrate brains are caused by a physical process of constrained expansion dependent on
two geometric parameters: relative tangential cortical expansion and relative thickness of the
cortex. Similar patterns of gyri (peaks) and sulci (troughs) have been demonstrated in models
of the brain starting from smooth, layered gels, with the patterns caused by compressive
mechanical forces resulting from the expansion of the outer layer (representing the cortex)
after the addition of a solvent. Numerical models in computer simulations support natural

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and experimental observations that the surface folding patterns increase in larger brains.
Here are examples of pattern formation.

You try this! (number 1)

Helmeted guineafowl, Snapshot of Aerial view

Giant Detail of giant of a tiger
pufferfish skin Numida meleagris, simulation of
pufferfish, bush
pattern feathers transition from Belousov plateau in
Tetraodon mbu
barred to spotted, both in Zhabotinsky Niger
feather and across the bird reaction.

Fir waves in Patterned ground: a Human brain

White melting pingo with Fairy circles in the (superior view)
Mountains, surrounding ice wedge Marienflusstal area exhibiting patterns
New polygons near in Namibia of gyri and sulci
Hampshire Tuktoyaktuk, Canada

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1. Identify the type of pattern whether 1.symmetry, 2. trees & fractals, 3. spirals, 4. chaos,
flow & meanders, 5. waves and dunes, 6. bubbles & foam, 7. tessellations, 8. cracks, 9. spots
& stripes, and 10. pattern formation.

1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7.

1. trees & fractals 2.trees & fractals 3. Tessellation 4.trees & fractals 5.trees & fractals

6.waves, dunes 7. Trees & fractals

2. Take a picture of an object in your surroundings and discuss how

mathematics is embedded in your chosen object.

it shows a pattern that is related to

mathematics it shows the arrangement of leaves on a plant
called phyllotaxis, the position of the these whorled leaves on
the stem can be often be predicted by mathematical formula
called fibonacci series.

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1.2.2 The Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden Ratio

The Fibonacci sequence is one of the most famous formulas in mathematics.
It is significant because of the so called golden ratio of 1.618, or its inverse 0.618.
Each number in the sequence is the sum of the two numbers that precede it. The
sequence goes this way: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, …, and so on. In the Fibonacci sequence, any
given number is approximately 1.618 times the preceding number, ignoring the first
few numbers.

Fibonacci sequence is found in nature by counting the number of petals of flowers.

Most have three petals like lillies and irises, five like parnassia and rose hips, or
eight like cosmea, 13 like daisies, 21 like chicory, and 34, 55, or even 89 like
asteraceae.

Fibonacci spirals and Golden spirals appear in nature, but not every spiral in nature is
related to Fibonacci numbers or Phi. Most spirals in nature are equiangular spirals,
and Fibonacci and Golden spirals are special cases of the broader class of
equiangular spirals.

Spirals and the Golden Ratio. Fibonacci numbers and Phi are related to spiral growth
in nature. If you sum the squares of any series of Fibonacci numbers, they will equal
the last Fibonacci number. This
property results in the Fibonacci spiral,
based on the following series:

12 + 12 + 22+ 32+ 52 = 5 x 8

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12 + 12 + … + F(n)2 = F(n) x F(n+1)

The Fibonacci spirals and Golden spirals appear in nature, but not every spiral in
nature is related to Fibonacci numbers or Phi. Most spirals in nature are equiangular
spirals, and Fibonacci and Golden spirals are special cases of the broader class of
Equiangular spirals. An equiangular spiral itself is a special type
of spiral with unique mathematical properties in which the size of the spiral
increases but its shape remains the same with each successive rotation of its curve.
The curve of an equiangular spiral has a constant angle between a line from origin
to any point on the curve and the tangent at that point, hence its name. In nature,
equiangular spirals occur simply because the forces that create the spiral are in
equilibrium, and are often seen in non-living examples such as spiral arms of
galaxies and the spirals of hurricanes. Fibonacci spirals, Golden spirals and golden
ration-based spirals often appear in living organisms.

Previously, you learned that numbers are everywhere. Numerical sequences are also
patterns of numbers known as terms. Let us try to know some of the usefulness of these
patterns in our lives.

Look at these sequences:

a. 2, 4, 8, ___, ___, ___

b. 3, 5, 7, ___, ___, ___

c. 1, 4, 9,___, ___, ___
What are the next three terms of these sequences?
Let also consider the sequence below:
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, …
What is the sixth term of this sequence? The seventh? Can you tell how the terms are
generated? This is called the Fibonnaci Sequence.

You try this! (number 2)

A. Use a tape measure to find the ratio of the following measures in your body:

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𝑓𝑜𝑜𝑡 20
1. foot and hand length = = = .5714
ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ 35
𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑚 19
2. the length of your forearm and the length of your hand = = =.5428
ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ 35
𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ 43
3. shoulder length and waistline = 𝑤𝑎𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒
= 66= .6515
𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑡 80
4. bust and right palm = = = 5.33
𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑝𝑎𝑙𝑚 15
ℎ𝑖𝑝𝑠 78
5. hips and armpit = 𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑝𝑖𝑡 = 31= 2.516

B. Determine whether the ratio give the value of (phi). 3.1416

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

1.3 References

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Number (First trade paperback ed.). Broadway Books. ISBN 978-0-7679-0816-0.

Padovan, Richard (2002). "Proportion: Science, Philosophy, Architecture". Nexus

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Hannavy, J. (2007). Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography. 1. CRC Press.

ISBN 978-0-415-97235-2.

Forbes, P. (2012). All that useless beauty. The Guardian. Review: Non-fiction.

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Prusinkiewicz, P., Lindenmayer, A. (1990). The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants.

Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-0-387-97297-8.

Lewalle, J. (2006). "Flow Separation and Secondary Flow: Section 9.1" (PDF). Lecture
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Tolman, H.L. (2008), "Practical wind wave modeling", in Mahmood, M.F. (ed.),
CBMS Conference Proceedings on Water Waves: Theory and Experiment (PDF),
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Strahler, A. & Archibold, O.W. Physical Geography: Science and Systems of the
Human Environment. John Wiley, 4th edition 2008.

Brodie, C. (2005). "Geometry and Pattern in Nature 3: The holes in radiolarian and
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D'Avanzo, C. (2004). "Fir Waves: Regeneration in New England Conifer Forests". TIEE.
Retrieved 26 May 2012.

Morelle, Rebecca (2013). "'Digital gophers' solve Mima mound mystery". BBC News.

Sample, I. (2017). "The secret of Namibia's 'fairy circles' may be explained at last".
The Guardian. Retrieved 18 January 2017.

Ghose, T. (2018). "Human Brain's Bizarre Folding Pattern Re-Created in a Vat". Scientific
American.

Tallinen, T.; Chung, J; Biggins, J. S.; Mahadevan, L. (2014).

https://youtu.be/me6Dn12DOtM

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1.4 Acknowledgment
The images, tables, videos, figures and information contained in this module were
taken from the references cited above.

Finding patterns is the essence of

wisdom. -Dennis Prager

_________ Course, Year and Section __________

Exercise No. 1(Mathematics in Our World)

symmetry, trees, fractals, spirals, chaos, flow, meanders, waves, dunes, bubbles,
foam, tessellations, cracks, spots, stripes, pattern formation.

I. Choose from the box above the type of pattern that is seen in the picture.

1. Pattern formation 2. Pattern formation _ _3. Pattern formation _4. Wave

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1 | Mathematics in the Modern World

_5.cracks ______6_trees _____ _7. Spots, _ _8. Trees

_______9_______ _____ 10________ _______ 11_________ __ ____12_______

9.symmetry 10. stripe 11. Cracks 12.symmetry

13. spirals _____14. Pattern formation 15. tessellation __16. Bubbles,

17.chaos, _ 18 tessellation _19. tessellation __20. symmetry

II. Let F(n) be the nth term of the Fibonacci sequence, with F(1) = 1, F(2) = 1, F(3) =
2, so on.
1. Find F(8)= 21
2. Find (19)= 4181
3. If F(22) = 17,711 and F(24) = 46,368, what is F(23)? F(23)= 28657
4. What is F(1) + F(2)? F(3)=2

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1 | Mathematics in the Modern World

5. What is F(1) + F(2) + F(3) + F(4) + F(5) + F(6)? 20

III. Watch the video “Nature by Numbers/The Golden Ratio and Fibonacci
Numbers” in youtube (use this link: https://youtu.be/me6Dn12DOtM) and
answer the following questions as briefly and concisely as can be: (I will also
send this video to the group chat of your section.)

1. What new ideas about mathematics did you learn from the lesson?
-the new ideas about mathematics that I learned from the lesson is that the golden ratio describes
pattern on everything from atoms to huge stars in the sky, and nature uses this ratio to maintain balance,
and financial market seems to as well and the fibonacci sequence can be applied to finance by using four
main techniques retracements, fans, time zones and arcs.

2. What is it about mathematics that might have changed your thoughts after
learning the patterns in nature in both living and non-living things?
-that mathematics is not just about number and solving it is also a study of patterns and
studying patterns can help us to observe, experiment and create. By learning the patterns
in nature in both living and non- living things we can discover and explain abstract
patterns or regularities of all kinds. And it is an important skills in math that help us to
learn complex number concepts and mathematical operation, patterns allow us to see
relationships and develop generalization.

3. How useful is mathematics to your daily lives?

- It is very helpful it helps us understand the words and help us in many ways
important things like government budget, business financial problems, school, sport,
making building and houses, cooking and many more it is a huge part of our life,
many people may say why study math we can’t even use it in real that is not true
cause we use math everyday some people may not know but its true without math
our world today will be lost .Example number is a math without numbers people
could not read clocks, measure anything, call anybody and much more. Everyone
has been put into position where they were presented with different forms of data .
without math the world will be pure chaos.

C. M. D. Hamo-ay