Skip to main content

Understanding Things through Patterns


Dean Schlicter rightly said “Go deep enough into anything and you will find Mathematics”. It is everywhere around us even if you are in a garden then take a closer look at any of plant and there you will find that it has large number of regular patterns for instant take a leaf then you can see different lines over it and you can observe that most leaf arrangement patterns keep a constant diverging angle, and by taking some assumptions you can find that the complete shape of a leaf is governed by some equations and some hard Maths can predict original growth of leaves, plants pretty well. Maths is good at making connections by looking at various patterns. So, can we say that Maths is all about patterns…Wait! before concluding anything let’s also look at other perspectives of Maths.

Mathematics is more pronounced in subjects like Physics and Engineering but if we look deeper than we can find that it is much close to arts, music, dance, sculptures and so on. In fact Mathematicians and Artisans are closely related as they both require reasoning skills and ability to recognize patterns. Art is good at making connections and so is Maths, the only difference is that art makes connection between peoples and their soul and Maths makes connections between different patterns, equations and everything we look around. In words of Sofia Kovalevskaya a Russian Mathematician “It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul”.

Essence of this discipline lies in understanding and then analyzing. Maths is not just about addition, subtraction, algebra, and trigonometry. It is about finding patterns, connecting different things, understanding things, finding out some sort of regularity between them, then comes defining some rules with certain assumptions and making language and now rest thing is to just play around with this language and do some awesome stuff and generalize them. So, story started with understanding things and it is still there because it is understanding that provides us with the ability to change our perspective. You can observe more and more patterns when you change your point of view and when you change your way of looking onto something you learn much more new things so, you can always make more Maths by just understanding patterns and looking at things with different perspective. You can tie your shoe lace with number of patterns then you can analyze them and make some language so that next time when you are doing it, it becomes easier to do so. Mathematics is all about tracing and seeing what happens, it makes understanding possible because you have already traced certain patterns and made a generalized form of everything you see and hear. Maths is the most generalized form of Science. Let’s look at it through an example of pie, basically pie is a mathematical constant which came from a well known geometry i.e. circle and is defined as ratio of circumference of a circle to diameter of the same circle, so you can think that origin of pie is somewhat related to circles but Wait! have you ever seen those large formulas of mechanics, electricity and magnetism, time period formulas and all even they have pie in their equations, look how different these all disciplines mentioned above are in terms of physical phenomenon but still they have some connection with the constant which came from circles. There are different phenomenon going on in nature and those looks completely different to our five senses but math finds connections between them by looking at patterns with different perspectives and making some general formulas which are applicable in all those happenings of nature which initially sounds different to us. All this started with just representing different things, so that understanding can be made possible and this resulted into a lot more which is serving mankind in different forms be it Computer Science, Physics, Engineering, AI and so on all this is working on shoulders of Mathematics. In words of Joseph Fourier “Mathematics compares the most diverse phenomenon and discovers the secret analogies that unite them”.

References:

https://youtu.be/ZQElzjCsl9o





 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

HOPE FOR RAIN

A small plant by the side of the road was a happy little thing. Everyone liked it because it was small, cute, and cheerful. It enjoyed its life, basking in the sun and the love it received from people passing by. One day, a big truck came along and threw dirt and mud on the plant, covering it up. Over time, the mud dried and suffocated the plant, making it sad and weak without the sunlight it needed. Now, the plant is waiting for the rain to come and wash away the dirt, so it can be happy and healthy again. That rain is all it needs. Life often throws challenges at us, like bullies for some kind-hearted people. Just like the plant can't avoid the truck, many people can't easily change their situations. But they can always hold on to hope for better days, like waiting for the rain to wash away their problems. The little plant couldn't escape the truck, and many people can't escape their problems, but they can always hope for a brighter future. This hope is like the rain ...
2 comments
Read more