Who said math can’t be interesting? Fractals like these can seem too perfect to be true, but they occur in nature and plants all the time and are examples of math, physics, and natural selection at work!
When we see order in the world, we think it must be some human hand that made it so. But Galileo Galilei in his Il Saggiatore wrote, “[The universe] is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures.” There is order in nature, and artists who want to reproduce it faithfully spend hours studying nature’s forms.
Civilization has struggled to understand this perfect geometry for thousands of years. In the 4th century, Plato believed that symmetry in nature was proof of universal forms; in 1952, the famous code-breaker Alan Turing wrote a book trying to explain how such patterns in nature could be formed.
Now you can join in the debate. Upvote your favorite photo from the list, or upload your own!
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Aloe Polyphylla
Almost all of the pictures contain spirals of leaves or flowers. The spirals are mathematically described as Fibbonaci spirals and these are formed due to specific angels in which new organs are formed at the border region of the shoot apical meristem of the plant. The angle is given by the genotype and the places where are the primordia of the new organs formed are characterized by formation of a local high concentration of the plant hormone auxin. And because the plant maintains the shoot apical meristem throughout its life, there are new structures also in old plants formed in this regular shape (the only precondition is there is no damage close to the apical meristem.
Crassula Buddha's Temple Plant
Amazon Lily Pad
Flowers Like Jeweled Carpet
Drosophyllum Lusitanicum
Fractal Cabbage
Lobelia
Alstroemeria Pelegrina
Spiral Begonia
Aeonium Tabuliforme
Passiflora Caerulea
Fearful Symmetry
I love the colors and the symetry. I like this one the best so far.
Agave~tequila Plant
Araucaria Arucana
Finonacci Garden
Millipede
White Chrysanthemum
Suculent
King Protea - Maui
Name?
Apple Core Cross Section
