What Shape is a Snow Flake?: Magic Numbers in Nature

Math is not the dry subject you think it is. It is in fact all around us, in the shapes of everyday things and in the patterns of nature. Stewart presents a beautifully illustrated view of the magical nature of the hidden math all around us. Whether studying a spider's web or a zebra's stripes or ocean waves, Stewart displays the math behind nature's patterned beauty. Oh, and about that snowflake? Every snowflake is a perfect hexagon, and as most children can tell you...no two are exactly alike. The stripes of a zebra...the complexities of a spider's web...the waves of the ocean...and the shape of a snowflake. These and other natural patterns have been recognized by scientists for centuries. What do they have in common? They can all be accounted for mathematically. In What Shape is a Snowflake? Internationally acclaimed mathematician Ian Stewart shows how life on earth develops not simply from genetic processes, but also from the principles of mathematics. Starting with the simplest symmetrical patterns, each chapter looks at a different kind of patterning system and the key scientific issues that underlie it. Patterns can embrace chaos, fractals, dislocations, even statistical regularities, and are found in many things that at first seem irregular or featureless. A constant wind blowing over a flat expanse of sand, for example, will develop ripples, which eventually lead to sand dunes that are often arranged in long parallel rows or other geometric forms. And the smooth surface of a growing organism will develop beautiful patterns of spots, stripes and colors. Beautifully illustrated, What Shape is a Snowflake? Is an illuminating and engaging vision of how the apparently cold laws of mathematics find organic expression in the beauty of nature.Ian Stewart is the author of 'What Shape is a Snow Flake?: Magic Numbers in Nature', published 2001 under ISBN 9780716747949 and ISBN 0716747944.