The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature

Ball, Philip

ISBN 10: 0198502435 / ISBN 13: 9780198502432

Verlag: Oxford University Press, 2001

Beschreibung

Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers FORT775862

Bibliografische Details

Titel: The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in...

Verlag: Oxford University Press

Erscheinungsdatum: 2001

Einband: paperback

Zustand: Very Good

Auflage: Illustrated.

Über diesen Titel

Inhaltsangabe:

Why do similar patterns and forms appear in nature in settings that seem to bear no relation to one another? The windblown ripples of desert sand follow a sinuous course that resembles the stripes of a zebra or a marine fish. In the trellis-like shells of microscopic sea creatures we see the same angles and intersections as for bubble walls in a foam. The forks of lightning mirror the branches of a river or a tree. This book explains why these are no coincidences. Nature commonly weaves its tapestry by self-organization, employing no master plan or blueprint but by simple, local interactions between its component parts - be they grains of sand, diffusing molecules or living cells. And the products of self- organization are typically universal patterns: spirals, spots, and stripes, branches, honeycombs. This book explains, in non-technical language, and with profuse illustrations, how nature's patterns are made.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor:

Philip Ball is an editor at Nature magazine.