Shapes. Nature's Patterns: a Tapestry in Three Parts by Philip Ball
This book is the first part of a trilogy exploring patterns in nature. In it, the author examines how natural forms are created and explains why similar structures are found under completely different conditions.
Patterns are found everywhere in nature—in the stream of clouds in the sky, the stripes of an angelfish and the petals of a flower. It’s remarkable, but this order creates itself—all the natural patterns we observe arise from self-organization. Scientists have discovered that in the basic structure and processes of nature, there is a tendency to form patterns, where a few simple motifs, when repeated according to simple rules, create an infinite variety of beautiful designs.
From soap bubbles to honeycombs, from delicate shells to the developing body parts of a complex organism like a human—patterns of growth emerge everywhere inevitably and spontaneously, driven by nothing more than basic physical forces.
The book helps us see the world around us in a new light, to recognize beauty and order even where we least expect it.
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What is pattern and what is form?
These concepts are, after all, my topics, and yet I am afraid that I cannot offer a rigorous definition of either, nor make a rigid distinction between them. If it makes you feel any better, remember that neither can scientists offer a rigorous definition of life. (They have tried often enough, but the very attempt is ill-advised, for the word is colloquial rather than scientific. You might as well try to define the word ‘love’.)
What is clear is that ‘pattern’ is a supremely plastic word, and evidently it implies quite different things to, say, a psychologist and to a wallpaper designer. My definition, such as it is, is much closer to the latter than the former. The best I can do is to say that a pattern is a form in which particular features recur recognizably and regularly, if not identically or symmetrically. And while I shall occasionally mention patterns of a temporal nature—events that repeat more or less regularly, such as the beating of a heart—on the whole I shall be talking in spatial terms, and so the image of a pattern on wallpaper or a carpet is a useful one to bear in mind. In those cases, however, the repeating units are generally identical. My concept of pattern will not necessarily be so demanding. The repeating elements may be similar but not identical, and they will repeat in a way that could be called regular without following a perfect symmetry. Yes, I know it’s vague—but I believe we usually know such patterns when we see them. One such is made up from the ripples of sand on a wave-lapped beach or in a windswept desert (Fig. 1.8). No two of these ripples are identical, and they are not positioned at exactly repeating intervals. But we can see at once that there are elementary units (ripples) that recur throughout space. We see the pattern. Indeed, we are remarkably good at seeing the pattern, which, because it is not mathematically perfect, is typically harder for a machine to recognize.
It has become a cliche´ to say that the human brain is a pattern-recognizing instrument while the electronic computer is a data-crunching instrument; but like most cliche´s, it has taken hold for good reason. Sand ripples are a relatively simple pattern, but I think we can discern something pattern-like too even in rather irregular structures, such as the peaks and valleys of a mountain range or the skeleton of a tree in winter.
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From the chapter The Shapes of Things
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- Hardcover
- 472 pages
- Dimensions: 150×220 mm (5,9″×8,6″)
- Press run: 3000
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ISBN 978-5-6047876-3-2
