Branches
Price:
$29.95 (01)Description
Patterns are everywhere in nature--in the ranks of clouds in the sky, the stripes of an angelfish, the arrangement of petals in flowers. Where does this order and regularity come from? As Philip Ball reveals in Nature's Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts, this order creates itself. The patterns we see come from self-organization. Indeed, scientists have found that there is a pattern-forming tendency inherent in the basic structure and processes of nature, whether living or non-living, so that from a few simple themes, and the repetition of simple rules, endless beautiful variations can arise.Many patterns in nature show a branching form - trees, river deltas, blood vessels, lightning, the cracks that form in the glazing of pots. These networks share a peculiar geometry, finding a compromise between disorder and determinism, though some, like the hexagonal snowflake or the stones of the Devil's Causeway fall into a rigidly ordered structure. Branching networks are found at every level in biology - from the single cell to the ecosystem. Human-made networks too can come to share the same features, and if they don't, then it might be profitable to make them do so: nature's patterns tend to arise from economical solutions.
Features
- Part of a trilogy of books exploring the science of how patterns arise in nature, written by award-winning science writer Philip Ball
- Examines branching patterns, networks, fractals, minute and delicate branching crystals and plants, the giant structure of the Devil's Causeway, and the overall shape of animal communities
- Explains how simple mathematical and physical rules can spontaneously give rise to large-scale and complex branching structures, and how this understanding has given us a new insight into the nature of biological form
- Reveals what we learn from the formation of networks in the natural world can be applied to our understanding of human interactions
Reviews
"Provide[s] a window into all that's fascinating in nature, skimming from pattern to pattern in prose and history, shedding light on the physical and chemical forces behind nature's tapestry without losing readers in the math." --Seed
Magazine
Product Details
272 pages; 140 b/w illus., 4 page color section; 5-1/2 x 8-1/2; ISBN13: 978-0-19-923798-2ISBN10: 0-19-923798-0About the Author(s)
Philip Ball is a freelance writer and a consultant editor for Nature, where he previously worked as an editor for physical sciences. He is a regular commentator in the scientific and popular media on science and its interactions with art, history and culture. His ten books on scientific subjects include The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature, H2O: A Biography of Water, The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science, and Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads To Another, which won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. He was awarded the 2006 James T. Grady - James H. Stack award by the American Chemical Society for interpreting chemistry for the public. Philip studied chemistry at Oxford and holds a doctorate in physics from the University of Bristol.
