Perhaps the most curious thing about natural patterns is that they come from a relatively limited palette, recurring at very different size scales and in systems that might seem to have nothing at all in common with one another. We see spirals, say, and hexagons, intricate branching forms of cracks and lightning, spots and stripes. It seems that there are types of pattern-forming process that don’t depend on the detailed specifics of a system but can crop up across the board, even bridging effortlessly the living and the non-living worlds. In this sense, pattern formation is universal: it doesn’t respect any of the normal boundaries that we tend to draw between different sciences or different types of phenomena.
Philip Ball, Patterns in Nature, p. 6
Frida Lannerström via Unsplash
A few weeks ago we enjoyed Karen Armstrong’s book Sacred Nature, which inspired and encouraged us to reconnect with the inherent sacredness of the natural world. This week, we’re doing the same thing from a very different angle. We’ll be looking at Patterns in Nature: Why the Natural World Looks the Way It Does, by former Nature editor Philip Ball. This book is unlike anything I’ve ever read before—visually stunning, both poetic and scientific in its descriptions of natural processes and appreciation for the complexity and mystery of nature. Ball’s writing, while laden with scientific facts, is clear and manages to be both broad-minded and extremely precise at the same time. Even for someone like me with a limited background in biology, chemistry, and physics, he brings to life the vortices, slime molds, and pigmentation processes that create patterns throughout our world.
Ball frames the book by asking a straightforward question:
It’s clear that pattern, regularity, and form can arise from the basic forces and principles of physics and chemistry, perhaps selected and refined by the exigencies of biological evolution. But that only deepens the mystery. How does the intricate tapestry of nature contrive to organize itself, produce a pattern without any blueprint or foresight? How do these patterns form spontaneously?
p. 6
The answer is, to some extent, that “the principles that operate in the world are general ones” and “often arise from broadly similar processes—ones in which some driving force, be it gravity or heat or evolution, prevents the system from ever settling into a steady, unchanging state” (p. 10). The same patterns can take place at microscopic levels or at intergalactic levels; whirlpool shapes occur in bathtubs and in galaxies.
In the case of fractals, which possess a self-similar structure that repeats itself at larger or smaller scales, we might not even be able to tell the scale we are looking at unless we have other evidence to help us out. Looking down at the coastline in this picture, for example, we don’t know if we are looking at some pebbles covering two or three feet of shore, or large boulders covering a long stretch of beach. (Note that all the photographs I’m using are publicly available images, not copyrighted images from Patterns in Nature.) That’s because the same pattern repeats itself at a scale of just a few feet or even several hundred miles. The same natural processes of erosion or accumulation are at work at almost every level of scale.
Ruth Troughton via Unsplash
Patterns in Nature is organized around eight types of pattern: symmetry, fractals, spirals, flow and chaos, waves and dunes, bubbles and foam, arrays and tiling, cracks, spots and stripes. Some of these systems of organization I had never given much thought to before; you might join me in wondering what patterns are present in bubbles and foam, for example. Well, it turns out that bubbles almost always come in the form of hexagons, which is the same structure of honeycomb and a wide variety of plant and animal cells (butterfly wings, algae, sea urchin exoskeletons). Or, you might be interested to know that the “branching, jagged, forked, fragmented” geometry of cracks is the same in lightning, river networks, parched soil, and cracked pavement (p. 222). Nature seems to find a pattern that works and sticks to it whenever possible.
Micah Tindall via Unsplash
My favorite chapter of the book is “Flow and Chaos,” which opens with a beautiful reflection that would not be out of place in Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations:
The universe is dynamic—always on the move. From clouds of gas and dust, stars coalesce. Water circulates around the ocean in great loops and gyres, driven by differences in temperature and saltiness; convection currents stir the air and summon up clouds and jet streams. Rivers flow down from the mountains in branching formations like those through which our blood courses. Many of these flows are turbulent—too fast to maintain any constant form to be fully predictable—and yet that doesn’t strip them of all order. The fundamental forms of fluid flow, such as the whirlpool vortex, are as familiar in coffee and cream as they are in a tropical cyclone; a storm in a cup, indeed. In these and other ways, patterns of flow surround us with mystery and majesty.
p. 108
The spirit of Heraclitus is strong as we learn everything we never knew we needed to know about laminar flow, turbulence, and convection. From the swarming patterns of birds and fish to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, somehow we can’t shake the feeling that “that amid the turbulent flow there is a kind of organization, a hint of patterns forever shifting and disintegrating” (108). The human mind, like the governing principles of nature, seems drawn to finding order in the midst of chaos.
In fact, as you’ve probably understood by now, this is exactly why Patterns in Nature aligns so well with a Stoic view. The ancient Stoics set great store by the “structure, order, and wholeness of nature,” to borrow a phrase from Chris Gill’s Learning to Live Naturally. As he puts it,
Features highlighted include the regular patterns of planetary movements in (what we call) the solar system; also the lunar cycle and the tides affected by this; the cycle of day and night, and the seasons throughout the year, all of which are taken as indications of rationality. Structure and order are most obvious in these features; however, they also indicate wholeness, in that they reflect the fact that the universe and world constitute coherent wholes, or unified and self-sustaining systems.
Chris Gill, Learning to Live Naturally, p. 301
Ball’s crisp, elegant explanations and the gorgeous photographs throughout this book reinforce this sense of structure, order, and wholeness throughout the universe. It’s mind-bending to see the same patterns pop up at various scales and in various materials throughout the cosmos. And while some of these patterns are quite well understood now, some of them remain mysterious. For example, scientists still aren’t exactly sure how patterns are produced in animal pelts, feathers, and scales. Famed British mathematician Alan Turing was the first to propose an explanation—a complex combination of pigment activators and inhibitors—but it remains unproven today. In many ways, we can still only guess at the chemical and physical processes shaping our universe.
Erik Mclean via Unsplash
I highly recommend Patterns in Nature to anyone who wants a jolt of wonder and admiration for the structure, order, and patterns that nature manages to create out of chaos. The book’s descriptions are rather technical and might be a little off-putting to non-scientists. However, the main attraction here is the photography. The pictures will impress and fascinate everyone, and I think that, ultimately, the book is accessible to any curious reader. I will leave the last word to Ball, with his evocative descriptions of nature (p. 10):
Natural patterns offer raw delights, but they also point to something deep…Forms and effects emerge from a rich interplay of components in a way you would—indeed could—never guess by looking at them individually. It is not mere mysticism or anthropomorphism to suggest that this emergence of new form reveals a kind of creative spontaneity in nature. The world uses simple principles to bring forth variety and riches.
Thank you for the review of Patterns in Nature Brittany. In my opinion this is what the ancient Stoics would see as the Logos in action. As a nature photographer I’m sure this book will be of great interest.