“Nature is abundant with patterns supported by mathematical concepts, such as the stripes on a zebra, the web of a spider, sand dunes, and snowflakes. In his book The Beauty of Numbers in Nature, Ian Stewart demonstrates how life arises from mathematical principles. The Beauty of Numbers in Nature examines several patterning systems and their mathematical foundations in each chapter. The book also reveals several common patterns that may be seen in both natural and human-made structures, ranging from the simple geometry of classical Greece to the intricate intricacy of fractals.
Stewart examines the mathematics of patterns by drawing on a variety of sources, including the Pythagoreans’ obsession with numbers as the philosophical foundation of the universe, a great mathematician who pondered how a violin makes music, a patent office clerk who realized that space and time could be mixed up, and a rebellious mathematician who questioned why nature shuns such regular geometric shapes as spheres and cylinders in favor of jagged lightning bolts and asy
The book opens with a straightforward and frequently posed query regarding snowflakes’ design and individual uniqueness. How can a tiny amount of frozen water contain such an odd combination of regularity and irregularity? Readers will have discovered by the book’s conclusion that mathematical patterns can take on many different forms, some of which bear no resemblance to patterns at all.”
