What are some examples of mathematics in nature?

Answer 1

There are some wonderful examples. Do you know fractals? They are things that look the same as you change their size. They occur all over the place, so much so that computer programs use them to generate mountais or trees. Coastlines are also fractals - if you look at a ragged coastline on a map, as you zoom in you find the level of detail remains about the same.

Geometry: the size and shape of sand dunes depends on the balance between stickiness of the particles and the pull of gravity. That is why in a desert they are all about the same size. There are "singing dunes", where the wind going over them hits the right resonance and makes a singing sound. (have you seen the films of the Puget Sound Bridge when the wind's resonance set it swinging and destroyed it?)

Snowflakes: did you ever wonder why a snowflake is symmetric? How each of the 6 branches "communicates" with the other to know just how to grow?

I will quit now because this is too easy. Wherever you look it is there: ocean waves, frisbees flying, population growth, petals on flowers...

Answer 2

Hi:

Try Sea-Shell they form spirals and Sand Dollars form Pentagon shapes and a Starfish has a five sided star shape

Trees the way they branch out, and the leaf patterns


Some Flowers form Geometrical Shape such as the Pentagons,Hexagons, Triangles, and Half circles


The proportions of animals body to other animals

The way some animals walk, the pattern on the ground,

The Spot pattern on some animals, Like Leopards,tigers, zebras, and some birds

Sunflower they make double spirals patterns,
Turtle shell - the magic Number squares,
Knots some bacteria make and tie themselves in knots and untie themselves
crystal patterns in some rocks and minerals such as salt ,Quartz Diamonds, Iron Pyrite... ect .

Cycle of nature:

Predator and prey cycle ,
Sunspots on the Sun,
Ocean waves
Solar day and Night Cycle
Snow flakes pattern
Hailstone - form circles
Sand dunes movements
Rivers
D.N.A and the code of life -
the Movement of the Moon in the sky and the tides

Answer 3

The Fibonacci sequence occurs in some kinds of shells and maybe trees

Answer 4

The chambered nautilus. The sizes of the chambers correspond to the golden mean (fibonacci spiral)

Answer 5

i did a report on this once.. pinecones are a good example.. i think its something with fibonaccis number? or at least that has examples in nature