pattern formation in nature

[Kì'eyawn]

cool.

This is something that has been really interesting to me in my graduate studies, but that doesn't seem to get emphasized enough in biological science classes—maybe because we don't fully understand it...?

But, basically, the idea is that some of the complexities we see in living things—like where leaves show up on plants, or how patterns develop on an animal's skin—are not the product of evolution, per se, but caused by more fundamental laws of physics acting on a smaller scale.  In other words, physical laws acting on one level of organization lead to apparent complexity at a higher level of organization.

Of course, i'm inclined to think that there's a mutually iterative...thing going on here, with physics constraints feeding into a bottom-up system, and evolutionary pressures feeding back in a top-down system, and then the whole thing repeats...  But still, so cool! 

[Le'eylan]

Reminds me of this video I watched earlier today:
Nature by Numbers

[Kì'eyawn]

Tewti!  That's a great video, ma Le'eylan   

The Fibonacci sequence, the Golden Ratio, the Phi constant...  Add fractal geometry, and that pretty much sums up why i almost was a math major in college 

[Swoka Ikran]

Interesting read.

Reminds me of this video I watched earlier today:
Nature by Numbers

Loved that video