Branches: Nature's Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts

Philip Ball's Tapestry in Three Parts

by Philip Ball

As part of a trilogy of books exploring the science of patterns in nature, acclaimed science writer Philip Ball here looks at the form and growth of branching networks in the natural world, and what we can learn from them.

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 nature's patterns tend to arise from economical solutions.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Nature, Biology, Mathematics, Popular Science

232 pages, Paperback

First published March 26, 2008

About the author

Philip Ball (born 1962) is an English science writer. He holds a degree in chemistry from Oxford and a doctorate in physics from Bristol University. He was an editor for the journal Nature for over 10 years. He now writes a regular column in Chemistry World. Ball's most-popular book is the 2004 Critical Mass: How One Things Leads to Another, winner of the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. It examines a wide range of topics including the business cycle, random walks, phase transitions, bifurcation theory, traffic flow, Zipf's law, Small world phenomenon, catastrophe theory, the Prisoner's dilemma. The overall theme is one of applying modern mathematical models to social and economic phenomena.

Reviews

[Mangoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book ends the trilogy on patterns - the grand editorial design of master divulgator Philip Ball that extended and updated his now hard-to-find original book "The self-made tapestry". Here the focus is on branched patterns - from diffusion-limited aggregation to dielectric breakdown, from viscous fingerings to cities and river basins. Growth instabilities are keys to the development of such often fractal patterns, as subset of positive feedback mechanisms that accentuate little, eventually random original asymmetries or nonuniformities. Ball preserved his clean and thoughtful style throughout, and this final tome adds to the list of examples of mechanisms and places where to look for amazing and often counter-intuitive patterns a few principles which, while far from deriving (as far as it is known till today) from a grand unifying theory, provide interesting guidelines for a rather broad and encompassing view of the plethora of phenomena. Critical phase transitions and phenomena, together with nonlinearity and non-equilibrium thermodynamics, are core to such principles. Ball always leads the reader to the brink of full details while preserving from mathematical technicalities - which can be found in the extended body of references at the end of the book (a negative note is that the references are not explicit in the text, though).
Overall the trilogy is a great feat of divulgative work, definitely recommended to all laymen who seek amazement in nature (where there is plenty) as well as experts in need of engaging refreshments or ideas to ponder.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've currently read the first two books of the series, with the third in my 'to-read' stack. This is an excellent overview of many parts of the field of nonlinear dynamics, including self-organization, self-assembly, flow and hydrodynamic interactions, complex fluids, fractal geometries, and dynamic steady-states driven far from thermodynamic equilibrium. This is my specialty, and it was a very fun read. Despite having worked in one of the labs that made significant contributions to this stuff, I still learned a lot from it. I especially enjoyed the history. But don't let all of this scare you off if you are not a physicist or applied mathematician. In fact, you don't need any special training at all to enjoy this book. Ball does an amazing job at explaining these natural phenomena in a way that is very approachable, with very little actual math. He uses many illustrations to show the reader exactly what he is talking about, and the examples are things we are all mostly familiar with, from patterns on animals and insects to how plants grow, sand dune formation, and much more. There are many "gee-whiz" moments of revelation about how nature forms patterns. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in cool science.

[Little · Rating 3 out of 5]

You could imagine a graph to categorize science writing on which the x-axis represents accessibility to non-scientists and the y-axis represents scientific rigor, and then plot books out to find the sweet spot where they are readable and enjoyable, even when not your area of expertise, but still careful enough with their scientific concepts that you can actually learn something valuable. This book hits that sweet spot, or maybe tips just a bit off the edge towards too rigorous.

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

My full review of the three books together is here.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. The science was mostly over my head, but Ball does a great job keeping it entertaining and explaining complex topics. Coming from a non-science perspective, it was really interesting to read about the way science works, all the people involved over many decades - centuries, even - in figuring out this stuff. Asking questions that wouldn't even occur to me. I was mostly interested in branching forms in terms of my artwork, and this book has given me many new ways to think about the forms and patterns in general.

[Antonio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Branches are present in almost every aspect of nature and civilization. Philip Ball explains branch formation, branch comparison techniques as well as algorithms inspired in how branches are formed. From urban street networks to fractures in cement, to rivers, branches are explained with detail and on physical basis firmly explained.

[Adam Calhoun · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting explanation of branching patterns. Ball describes the physical processes at work clearly, and presents the history of the models used to represent the observed behavior. He uses the models to give a better intuition as to what is happening physically. It's all very interesting.

[alzabo · Rating 5 out of 5]

pretty sweet, lots of stuff i've never thought of before