1 | Mathematics in the Modern World 1

UNIT 1. THE NATURE OF MATHEMATICS

1.0 Learning Outcomes

On completion of the module, you should be able to:
a. identify the patterns in nature and regularities in the world;
b. articulate the importance of mathematics in one’s life; and
c. argue how the nature of mathematics is expressed, represented and used.

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 and to be
submitted to me for checking. It will serve as your grade in the participation.
So, you must answer all of them.

1.2 Types of Patterns 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.

1.2.1Symmetry
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

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

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.

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

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1.2.2 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 self-similar (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.
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 Fractal Angelica Trees: Trees:

parsley, spirals: flowerhead, a Lichtenberg dendritic
Anthriscus Romanesco figure: high copper
sphere made
sylvestris, is broccoli voltage crystals (in
2- or 3- showing self- of spheres dielectric microscope)
pinnate, not similar form. (self-similar) breakdown in
infinite. an acrylic
polymer
block.
1.2.3 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

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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.

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.

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
in
equiangular
spirals

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1.2.4 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
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.

Chaos: shell of Meanders:

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

Meanders: Meanders:
Meanders: sinuous
sinuous path of symmetrical brain
snake crawling.
Rio Cauto, coral, Diploria
Cuba strigosa

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1.2.5 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 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.

Dunes: sand Wind ripples with

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

1.2.6 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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Foam of soap Haeckel's Buckminsterfull

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

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

1.2.7 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

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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.

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

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

1.2.8 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

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Old pottery Drying inelastic Veined gabbro

surface, white mud in the Rann with 90° cracks,
glaze with of Kutch with near Sgurr na Stri,
mainly 90° mainly 90° cracks Skye
cracks

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

1.2.9 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.

Leopard, Grevy's zebra, Array of Breeding pattern

Panthera Equus grevyi ladybirds by of cuttlefish,
pardus G.G. Sepia officinalis
Jacobson

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1.2.10 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,
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

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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
and experimental observations that the surface folding patterns increase in larger brains.

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

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

You try this! (number 1)

Identify the type of pattern in number 2, 3, 4, & 5.

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

is embedded in your chosen object.

2. 3. 4. 5.

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1.3 References

Livio, M. (2003). The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing
Number (First trade paperback ed.). Broadway Books. ISBN 978-0-7679-0816-0.

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

Network Journal. 4 (1). https://doi:10.1007/s00004-001-0008-7.

Livio, M. (2003). The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing
Number (First trade paperback ed.). Broadway Books. ISBN 978-0-7679-0816-0.

Knott, Ron. "Fibonacci's Rabbits". University of SurreyFaculty of Engineering and

Physical Sciences.

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.

Koning, R. (2012). "Plant Physiology Information Website". Pollination Adaptations.

Hickman, C. P.; Roberts, L. S.; Larson, A. (2002). "Animal Diversity" (PDF). Chapter
8: Acoelomate Bilateral Animals (Third ed.). Archived from the original (PDF) on
May 17, 2016.

Minamino, Ryoko; Tateno, Masaki (2014). "Tree Branching: Leonardo da Vinci's

Rule versus Biomechanical Models". https://doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0093535.

Hahn, H. K.; Georg, M.; Peitgen, H. O. (2005). "Fractal aspects of three-dimensional

vascular constructive optimization".

Sadegh, Sanaz (2017). "Plasma Membrane is Compartmentalized by a Self-Similar

Cortical Actin Meshwork". Physical Review
https://doi:10.1103/PhysRevX.7.011031. PMC 5500227. PMID 28690919.

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
Notes in Incompressible Fluid Dynamics: Phenomenology, Concepts and Analytical
Tools. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University. Archived from the original (PDF).

Tolman, H.L. (2008), "Practical wind wave modeling", in Mahmood, M.F.

(ed.), CBMS Conference Proceedings on Water Waves: Theory and Experiment (PDF),
World Scientific Publishing.

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 1 | Mathematics in the Modern World 13

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
diatom tests". Microscopy-UK.

Hook, J.R.; Hall, H.E. (2010). Solid State Physics (2nd Edition). Manchester Physics
Series, John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-92804-1

Murray, James D. (2013). Mathematical Biology. Springer Science & Business Media.
ISBN 978-3-662-08539-4.

Prum, R. O.; Williamson, S. (2002). "Reaction–diffusion models of within-feather

pigmentation patterning"(PDF). Proceedings of the Royal Society of London
B. 269(1493). https://doi:10.1098/rspb.2001.1896. PMC 1690965. PMID 11958709.

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.

"Permafrost: Patterned Ground". US Army Corps of Engineers. Archived from the

original on 7 March 2015. Retrieved 17 February 2015.

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).

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

Finding patterns is the essence of

wisdom. -Dennis Prager

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Name _____________________________ Course, Year and Section __________

Exercise No. 1 (Types of Pattern in Nature)

I. Identify the type of pattern that is seen in the picture. Write your answer on the
blank under each image.
1. 2. 3. 4.

_______________ _________________ ____________ __________________

5. 6. 7. 8.

________________ _________________ _______________ ________________

9. 10. 11. 12.

_______________ _________________ ________________ ________________

13.

_______________ ______________ __________________ _______________

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________________ _______________ _________________ ____________

II. Answer the following questions as briefly and concisely as can be:

1. What new ideas about mathematics did you learn from the lesson?

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?

3. How useful is mathematics to your daily lives?

C. M. D. Hamo-ay