What Shape is a Snow Flake?: Magic Numbers in Nature

by Ian Stewart

The stripes of a zebra...the complexities of a spider's web...the waves of the ocean...and the shape of a snowflake. These and other natural patterns have been recognized by scientists for centuries. What do they have in common? They can all be accounted for mathematically.
In What Shape is a Snowflake? internationally acclaimed mathematician Ian Stewart shows how life on earth develops not simply from genetic processes, but also from the principles of mathematics. Starting with the simplest symmetrical patterns, each chapter looks at a different kind of patterning system and the key scientific issues that underlie it. Patterns can embrace chaos, fractals, dislocations, even statistical regularities, and are found in many things that at first seem irregular or featurless. A constant wind blowing over a flat expanse of sand, for example will develop ripples, which eventually lead to sand dunes that are often arranged in long parallel rows or other geometric forms. And the smooth surface of a growing organism will develop beautiful patterns, of spots, stripes and colors.
Beautifully illustrated, What Shape is a Snowflake? is an illuminating and engaging vision of how the apparently cold laws of mathematics find organic expression in the beauty of nature.

Genres: Nonfiction, Mathematics

224 pages, Hardcover

First published April 28, 1998

About the author

Ian Nicholas Stewart is an Emeritus Professor and Digital Media Fellow in the Mathematics Department at Warwick University, with special responsibility for public awareness of mathematics and science. He is best known for his popular science writing on mathematical themes.
--from the author's website

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See other authors with similar names.

Reviews

[Isscandar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Noiosissimo. Vino annacquato o se preferite brodo allungato.

[roro · Rating 5 out of 5]

learning about the #patterns this week

[Ioannis Savvas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Από το σχήμα της χιονονιφάδας στο σχήμα του σύμπαντος…

Ο συγγραφέας (Ian Stewart) απλοποιεί έννοιες των μαθηματικών που περιγράφουν τον κόσμο μας. Τα σχήματα στις ζέβρες, τα χρώματα των σαλιγκαριών, οι αριθμοί Fibonacci, οι συμμετρίες, οι σπείρες, ο χρόνος, τα fractals, η Θεωρία του Χάους, όλα «δένουν» μεταξύ τους κάτω από την επιβλητική δύναμη των μαθηματικών.

Υπάρχει ένα μοναδικό λάθος στη μετάφραση του βιβλίου (τουλάχιστον εγώ μόνο αυτό βρήκα). Μόνο ένας κτηνίατρος/βιολόγος μπορεί να το καταλάβει. Μπορείτε να το βρείτε;

[Peter]

Maths for real people: Ian Stewart provides the key to unlocking the secrets of the mathematical world through the myriad wonderful and varied examples of the everday world.

Why indeed, is a snowflake the overall shape it is and why is every single one unique in the detail. Stewart does what many other science writers do in popularising his subject but it is in the detail that he is unique, and fascinating.