Nature's mathematics

Abstract

Introduction: We generally think of nature as being free from all mathematical exactness and regular arrangement – that nature never places herself in straight lines and exact angles. We feel that she is free from square and circles and of all things suggestive of mathematical government; that she is careless and easy and restricted to no such stiff ways as those of man, but picturesque in her irregularity, and purposeless in the promiscuous scattering of her elements over land and sea and sky. Such is the impression of the casual observer. But when we come to study nature more carefully, we find that it is not a miscellaneous collection of things without definite laws or regulations. We find these elements in circles, pentagons, ellipses and other geometrical forms.