The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature

Ball, Philip

ISBN 10: 0198502435 / ISBN 13: 9780198502432

Verlag: Oxford University Press, 2001

Beschreibung

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Bibliografische Details

• Titel: The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature
• Verlag: Oxford University Press
• Erscheinungsjahr: 2001
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN-10: 0198502435
• ISBN-13: 9780198502432
• Einband: Paperback
• Zustand: new

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.