Lesson 1 Part 2

Patterns and Numbers in Nature and the World

 Patterns and Regularities
• Mathematics is all around us. As we discover more about our
environment, we can mathematically describe nature. The beauty
of a flower, the majestic tree, even the rock formation exhibits
nature’s sense of symmetry.
• Have you ever thought about how nature likes to arrange itself in
patterns to act efficiently? Nothing in nature happens without a
reason, all of these patterns have an important reason to exist and
they also happen to be beautiful to watch.
 Types of Patterns
1. SYMMETRY – a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion of balance
or an object is invariant to any various transformations (reflection, rotation, or
scaling.)
a. Bilateral Symmetry:
▪ Asymmetry in which the left and right sides of the organism can be divided into
approximately mirror images of each other along the midline. Symmetry exists in living
things such as insects, animals, plants, flowers, and others. Animals have mainly bilateral
or vertical symmetry, even leaves of plants and some flowers such as orchids.
1. SYMMETRY
Types of Patterns
a. Bilateral Symmetry:

Indicates that
Examples: ❑ Leonardo
you can draw da Vinci’s
an imaginary Vitruvian
line across an Man
object and the
▪ Shows the
resulting parts proportion
are mirror and
images of symmetry of
each other. ❑ Butterfly the human
body.
▪ left
and right portion are
exactly the same
 Types of Patterns
1. SYMMETRY

b.) Radial Symmetry (or rotational symmetry)

asymmetry around a fixed point known as the center and it can be classified
as either cyclic or dihedral.
Plants often have radial or rotational symmetry, as to flowers and some groups of
animals.
Five-fold symmetry is found in the echinoderms, the group in which includes
starfish (dihedral-D5 symmetry), sea urchins, and sea lilies.
Radial symmetry suits organisms like sea anemones whose adults do not move and
jellyfish(dihedral-D4 symmetry). Radial symmetry is also evident in different kinds
of flowers.
 Types of Patterns
1. SYMMETRY
b.) Radial Symmetry (or rotational symmetry)

Example: • There are other types of symmetry depending on the

number of sides or faces that are symmetrical.
• Note that if you rotate the starfish you can still
achieve the same appearance as the original position.
This is known as the rotational symmetry.
• The smallest measure of angle that a figure can be
rotated while still preserving the original position is
called the angle of rotation.
• A more common way of describing rotational
symmetry is by order of rotation.
 Order of Rotation
• A figure has a rotational symmetry of order n (n-fold rotational symmetry) if
1/n of a complete turn leaves the figure unchanged.
 Angle of Rotation

• Example:
The pattern on the snowflake
repeat six times, indicating that
there is a 6-fold symmetry. Using
the formula, the angle of rotation
is 600
 Honeycomb

• Why bees used hexagon in making

honeycomb and not any other polygons?

Packing Problem
It involves finding the optimum method
of filling up a given space such as a cubic or
spherical container.
 Packing Problem
•
 Packing Problem
• For square packing, each square will have an area of 4cm2. Note from the
figure that for each square, it can fit only one circle (4quarters). The
percentage of the square’s area covered by circles will be
 Packing Problem
For hexagonal packing, we can think of each hexagon as
composed of six equilateral triangles with side equal to
2cm.
The area of each triangle is given by
 Packing Problem
•
Packing Problem

It can clearly see

that using
hexagons will
cover a larger area
than when using
squares.
 Types of Patterns
2. FRACTALS – a curve or geometric figure, each part of which has the same
statistical character as the whole.
A fractal is a never-ending pattern found in nature. The same shape is replicated
in a process called “self-similarity.” The pattern repeats itself over and over again
at different scales.
For example, a tree grows by repetitive branching. This same kind of branching
can be seen in lightning bolts and the veins in your body. Examine a single fern
or an aerial view of an entire river system and you’ll see fractal patterns.
 Types of Patterns
2. FRACTALS
Examples:
 Types of Patterns
3. SPIRALS - A logarithmic spiral or growth spiral is a self-similar spiral curve that
often appears in nature.
It was first described by Rene Descartes and was later investigated by Jacob
Bernoulli.
A spiral is a curved pattern that focuses on a center point and a series of circular
shapes that revolve around it.
Examples of spirals are pine cones, pineapples, hurricanes. The reason why plants
use a spiral form is that they are constantly trying to grow but stay secure.
 Types of Patterns
3. SPIRALS

Examples:
 Tiger’s Stripes and Hyena’s Spot
• Patterns exhibited in the external appearances
of animals. The tiger looks and hyena’s spot,
these seemingly random designs are believed
to be governed by mathematical equation.
• According to the theory of Allan Turing the
chemical factors in the cell determine growth
patterns, and influence factors like hair color.
There are two chemical process: reaction and
diffusion.
 The Sunflower

• Looking at a sunflower, there is a

definite pattern of clockwise and
counterclockwise arc of spirals
extending outward from the center of
the flower.
 The Snail’s Shell

• As the snails grow, their shells

also expand proportionally. This
process results in a refined spiral
structure, it is called as
equiangular spiral.
 Flower Petals

• Flowers are easily considered as things of

beauty.
• Flowers with five petals are said to be the
most common.
• Number of petals are all Fibonacci numbers.
 Population Growth
• Mathematics used to model population growth with the formula
rt
A = Pe
where: A is the size of the population after it grows,

P is the initial number of people,

r is the rate of growth,

t is time, and

e is Euler’s constant with an approximately value of 2.718.

 Population Growth
Example
• The exponential growth model A = 30e0.02t describes the population
of a city in the Philippines in thousands, t years after 1995.

a. What was the population of the city in 1995?

b. What will be the population in 2017?

 Population Growth
Solution (a)
• Since our exponential
growth model describes
the population t years after
1995, we consider 1995 as
t = 0.
 Population Growth
Solution (b)
• We need to find A for the
year 2017. To find t, we
subtract 2017 and 1995 to
get t = 22, which we then
plug in to our exponential
growth model.
 Activity 3
• Substitute the given values in the formula A = Pert to find the missing quantity.
1. P = 680,000; r = 12% per year; t = 8 years
2. A = 1,240,000; r = 8% per year; t = 30 years
3. A = 786,000; P = 247,000; t = 17 years
4. A = 731,093; P = 525,600; r = 3% per year
• 5. Suppose the population of a certain bacteria in a laboratory sample is 100. If it
doubles in population every 6 hours, what is the growth rate? How many bacteria
will there be in two days?