Strange Science

A screenshot from Powder Game. Colored mesh shows wind force.

Physics sandboxes!

I figured why not. Who doesn’t enjoy a little fun while studying nature?

A physics sandbox is basically what the name implies. A sandbox in which you can “play” with different elements and see the reactions.

There are many different Java-based games, as well as downloadable games, that you can use to simulate different element interactions. Right now, my favorite is a Powder Game, featured here. You can draw with many different elements, and make them interact. Magma, water, suds, wind, lightning, and even explosives. It’s a lot of fun!

Another site you’ll want to check out if you enjoy the Powder Game is Pyro Sand 2 and  New Sand. These sites all have really annoying banner ads, but the games themselves are both fun and addicting. Powder Game has to be my favorite, though. I love how real to life the addition of wind power is.

     “If a ‘religion’ is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel taught us that mathematics is not only a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one.”

– John Barrow

Did you know that nature, sweeping majestically and sublimely all around us, is just teeming with features of the mathematical realm, too? Symmetry, asymmetry, spirals, hexagons, circles, tessellations, and a huge bunch of other seemingly everyday math concepts are made alive and vibrant through snowflakes, rock formations, blossoming flower buds, chambered nautilus shells…just to name a few.

The Fibonacci sequence visible in the whorl of this seashell.

Now why not give math in nature a whorl? Er…”whirl.”

One of the starkest traces of math found in nature is something called the “Fibonacci sequence.”
“What in the world is a ‘Fibonacci’”, you ask? Well, the Fibonacci sequence (named after its discoverer) is a pattern of numbers that proceeds in this way, starting at 1:

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34… and so on. The previous number adds on to the next number and on to the next, et cetera.

Skipping to the point, the pattern of these numbers ultimately creates an outward-reaching spiral that you can find fairly often if you just pause and take a closer look at a world that thrives all around us, even right at our feet.

A prime example, not unlike ornate common seashells, is the beautiful and ornate shell of the squid-like nautilus, which is a soft-bodied aquatic animal closely related to the squid and octopus. I lives snugly in a striped, curled shell, tucking itself inside when danger approaches.

The leaf-encircled stem of this plant can be divided in half, and the two halves mirror each other in symmetry!

It doesn’t stop there. Get a load of this - you can find magnificent spirals in the plant world - in sheer abundance. Most pine cones flourish this mathematical wonder, as is evidenced when you might turn one over and look at the flatter end. The spiky extensions (essentially, the seeds) branch out from the core in such a way that multiple spirals are formed and entwined.  The exquisite cone flower is also an excellent testament to the Fibonacci spiral. A handy number of succulent plants, which thrive by storing hearty supplies of water in their thick - almost rubbery - leaves, also show off their green glory in a twirling tapestry of top-notch beauty.

Oh, but there’s still more! It doesn’t end there, either. You’ll also notice another kind of math in the animal world - certain shapes, for instance.

Five-pointed flowers like this petunia are a great example of radial symmetry in nature - like slicing up an apple pie, this flower can be evenly divided into five "slices".

What is more familiar than the hexagonal home of the honeybee hive? Each of those little cells has six even walls that creates a mesh of hexagons - sturdy, strong, and safe. An excellent place for storing honey, and even the squirmy little larva that one day will become worker bees. Simple and elegant and precise.

So, now that you’ve seen a nice number of examples of numbers in nature, why not delve a little deeper? If you should, one day, be strolling out-of-doors and see beside you a potted array of flowers…just stop for a moment. Stop, and really look at what you’ve always seen.

Flowers can be taken for granted, simply because there are so many of them. Who thinks, the moment they see a massive field of poppies, “Gee, what a terrific sight. A true sea of petals, leaves, pistils, stamen, stems and roots.” It’s just as unlikely that someone staring at a common goldfish in its glass bowl will think, “Wow, just get a load of all those scales…the fibers of its fins…and the nerves on its back. It must be able to feel even really faint electric pulses with those nerves!”

An empty wasp's nest, with many round capsules for larva to grow inside.

 This second narrative actually has its roots in a story described by Southeastern University math teacher, Dr. Revell. His story was this: 
A college professor put a fishtank on a stand in front of his students. He told them to look at the fish, and to take notes. The students gave one another baffled looks and murmured amongst themselves, saying, “It’s just a fish.” But then, they understood. Their professor was not just asking them to stare at a little blob of fins and scales wiggling in a glass bowl. He was asking them to really look at it. Before long, the students were chattering about how the gleaming golden scales formed beautiful tapered patterns, and how delicate nerves formed a sensitive stripe along its back to sense predators in the sea.

The students had learned to look, and not just to see. We take the natural world for granted, making every leaf and every grain of sand into an oversight, caring only for the bigger picture and not for the parts of the whole.

“I believe that [even] young children can appreciate God’s handiwork in the spiders’ web,” stated the Director of Civil Engineering Services, Ken McCoig, 
“The older we get, we can appreciate the mathematical implications surrounding the creation of the nautilus shell and finally the balance displayed in our solar system and the ever expanding universe.”

The intricate and elegant spiral of silk, crafted diligently by the cunning spider.

With all the sheer majesty of nature, overwhelming and alluring the human race with its endless supply of thought-invoking solace and stunning diversity, we are left but to wonder of its very character…and of its source.

Below you’ll find an awesome video featuring scientist John Clayton, describing the properties of the Fibonacci spiral, as well as its application in all of nature - the the very daunting evidence that numbers in nature might hold more that we can even begin to imagine - or, heaven forbid…a divine Creator!

More images await your curious eyes here:

Whether or not you believe in a higher power, the big bang, evolution, or simply don’t care, there is something in nature for everybody. There is intricacy. There is simplicity. There are numbers. There are patterns. There is aesthetic beauty, for the sake of beauty. 

So, really.

Take time to stop and smell the flowers - don’t just see, but look. Really look. <3

 ”As long as algebra is taught in school, there will be prayer in school.”
 - Cokie Roberts