Sunday, October 23, 2005

Think Math


Nature's patterns
So who is right? Well, there is much that is attractive in the Platonist point of view. It's tempting to see our everyday world as a pale shadow of a more perfect, ordered, mathematically exact one. For one thing, mathematical patterns permeate all areas of science. Moreover, they have a universal feel to them, rather as though God thumbed His way through some kind of mathematical wallpaper catalogue when He was trying to work out how to decorate His Universe. Not only that: the deity's pattern catalogue is remarkably versatile, with the same patterns being used in many different guises. For example, the ripples on the surface of sand dunes are pretty much identical to the wave patterns in liquid crystals. Raindrops and planets are both spherical. Rainbows and ripples on a pond are circular. Honeycomb patterns are used by bees to store honey (and to pigeonhole grubs for safekeeping), and they can also be found in the geographical distribution of territorial fish, the frozen magma of the Giant's Causeway, and rock piles created by convection currents in shallow lakes. Spirals can be seen in water running out of a bath and in the Andromeda Galaxy. Frothy bubbles occur in a washing-up bowl and the arrangement of galaxies.


Well the following article came to my recognition by the "picture above". When reference was made to what some might think, as what underlying reality exists as a mathematical pattern, could ever been associated to some divine will? Who or what would decide this, as representing the very idea of resonant possibilties of expression in symmetry breaking?

But crystals exhibit clear mathematical patterns of their own, such as a regular geometric form, and while nobody can deduce this in full logical rigour from the quantum mechanics of their atoms, there is a chain of reasoning that makes it plausible that the laws of quantum mechanics do indeed lead to the regularities of crystal structure.


How would one define a crystal, as having preconcieved viabilties in the quantum world? This would be very hard and uncertain thing to deal with. What rational would allow such previews of a reality before it can become something else?



See. Some might of recognized that picture above to the issue of Science and Mind by Sir Roger Penrose?

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