Written By: Ahmed Alabi Khan Edited By: Pranomita Shom and Tasfia Ahmed
Mathematics pervades nature in every aspect. We can simply define mathematics as a language that understands the marvellous patterns of life. Everything in our nature adorns itself to coexist harmoniously with each other. Mathematics is to represent these patterns and adornments so that we can apprehend their characteristics and deduce the way they behave. Roger Antonson, a Computer Scientist, has said in his speech at TED-Ed, “The Equivalent sign in an equation is a metaphor that shows the two different perceptions of any subject.” Similarly, mathematics is another perception of these patterns in nature; in a much-simplified manner. The entire article inclines to represent these fascinating relations between nature throughout the world.
The beauty of nature stretches from the smallest honeybee to the broad universe, with the infusion of mathematics to its very core. The sweet collected honey fills the beehives after a long day of the toil of building the beehive and storing the honey, but this hard work of the bees does not fall beyond the boundaries of mathematics. The beehive is a perfect nest made of hundreds of small rooms that are arranged in perfect hexagonal tessellations. Such a structure enables a firm foundation for the hives; strengthening the colonies and preparing to be in a full swing in spring.
Bees collect honey from flowers, sucking nectar or pollen from its heart. But is there an infusion of mathematics in it? Yes, there is, with an interesting fact that lies within. The number of petals in a flower is always equivalent to either of the numbers in the Fibonacci series. Fibonacci series is a sequence of numbers where the series is incremented by the summation of the previous two predecessor numbers in the same series. The series always starts at 0 and then 1. The summation of 0 and 1 are 1 so, the next number in the series is 1. The series then proceeds by further summation; 1+1=2, 2+1=3, and so on. A brief portion of the series is shown below.
Other than the petals, the number of seeds in a sunflower follows the same nature. The amount of clockwise and anti-clockwise spirals of seeds in a sunflower always matches with the Fibonacci series.
Here, the number of the clockwise spirals is 55 Here, anti-clockwise spirals are 34
IN ABOVE DIAGRAMS THE NUMBER OF CLOCKWISE AND ANTI-CLOCKWISE SPIRALS MATCHES WITH THE FIBONACCI SERIES.
Flowers are considered to be a symbol of passion and purity because of their charming colours and amiable aura. Colour is an abstract entity that is caused due to the reflection of light waves. Light waves are transverse waves whose characteristics match with that of a sinusoid curve of sine and cosine function in trigonometry. This tells us that we can represent these colours graphically with the help of trigonometry; where each colour has its unique wavelength and frequency. The larger the frequency, the smaller its wavelength. Thus, we can say the higher the value of “b” in the equation [asinbx+c], the higher is the amount of frequency and the smaller its wavelength.
Rivers are yet another marvel of nature. An amusing fact about most rivers on earth is that the measurement of their sinuosity is always close around to the value of pi! It may intrigue one to think whether it is true or not but before deducing the degree of its factuality, we must know what sinuosity is. Sinuosity can be defined as the measurement of how curved a river is. This feature is equivalent to the ratio of the total length of a river to the displacement of the river from its mouth to its delta. For example, the total length of the Amazon river is approximately 6575km and the displacement from its mouth to the delta is approximately 2092.888km. For further proof work out the ratio and miraculously you will find that the result is Pi!
Another very interesting fact is the Golden ratio. In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities. At this point let’s take a flashback to the Fibonacci series. The ratio of each number in the Fibonacci series to its consecutive number is always the Golden ration which is 1.61803398875. It is often referred to as Phi. This ratio could be found in any corner of our nature. Say, for example, hold out your arm and calculate the ratio of the length from the finger to the elbow to the length from your elbow to the shoulder. It is Phi! Let’s go a bit ahead, find the ratio of the distance from fingertip to the wrist to the length from your wrist to your elbow. It is still Phi! This can even be noticed in the helix of our DNA too.
CONCLUSION
The nature around us is a very mysterious yet campy all at the same time. The more we tend to understand it the more we get fascinated by it. It is one of the blissful blessings that has been influencing our lives since, both directly and indirectly; engaging us in its epigrammatic cycles. We already love it from our hearts but to feel its endearing presence surrounding us; a peek into it through mathematics is a must.