Republic of the Philippines 1

Cagayan State University

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SECTION 1. The Nature of Mathematics

I. Mathematics in our World
 Patterns and numbers in nature and the world: the snowflake and honeycomb; tiger’s stripes and
hyena’s spots; the sunflower; the snail’s shell, flower petals; the world population, the weather, etc.
 The Fibonacci sequence

Introduction to Mathematics in our World

Mathematics in the modern world deals with the nature of mathematics appreciation of its practical,
intellectual, and aesthetic dimensions and applications of mathematical tools in daily life. This module
discusses the nature of mathematics as an exploration of patterns and as an application of inductive and
deductive reasoning. By exploring topics in this subject students may go beyond the typical understanding
of mathematics as merely a set of formulas but as a source of aesthetics in patterns of nature and a rich
language in itself governed by logic and reasoning.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

1. Identify patterns in nature and regularities in the world

2. Articulate the importance of mathematics in one’s life
3. Argue about the nature of mathematics, what it is, how it is expressed, represented, and used
4. Express appreciation for mathematics as a human endeavor

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 2
Cagayan State University
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PRESENTATION OF CONTENT

I. Mathematics in our World

WHAT IS MATHEMATICS?
● Mathematics is the study of pattern and structure. Mathematics is fundamental to the physical and
biological sciences, engineering and information technology, to economics and increasingly to the social
sciences.
● Mathematics is a useful way to think about nature and our world.
● Mathematics is a tool to quantify, organize and control our world, predict phenomena and make life easier
for us.

WHERE IS MATHEMATICS?
● Many patterns and occurrences exists in nature, in our world, in our life. Mathematics helps make sense
of these patterns and occurrences.

WHAT ROLE DOES MATHEMATICS PLAY IN OUR WORLD?

● Mathematics helps organize patterns and regularities in our world.
● Mathematics helps predict the behavior of nature and phenomena in the world.
● Mathematics helps control nature and occurrences in the world for our own ends.
● Mathematics has numerous applications in the world making it indispensable.

PATTERNS AND NUMBERS IN NATURE AND THE WORLD

Patterns in nature are visible regularities of form found in the natural world and can also be seen in
the universe. Nature patterns which are not just to be admired, they are vital clues to the rules that govern
natural processes.

The following are examples of some of the patterns seen in our nature.
1. Patterns can be observed even in stars which
move in circles across the sky each day.

Photo by: The Daily Office – WordPress.com

2. All snowflakes contains six-fold symmetry

which no two are exactly the same.

Photo by: Template.net

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 3
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3. Patterns can be seen in fish patterns like spotted trunkfish, spotted puffer, blue spotted stingray, spotted
moral eel, coral grouper, red-lion fish, yellow boxfish and angel fish. Zebras, tigers, cats and snakes are
covered in patterns of stripes; leopards and hyenas are covered in pattern of spots and giraffes are covered
in pattern of blotches. These animals and fish stripes and spots attest to mathematical regularities in
biological growth and form.

Spotted Trunkfish Spotted Puffer Red-lion Fish

Photo by: Reef Guide Photo by: African Cichlids Photo by: Girls that Scuba

Zebras Tigers Hyenas

Photo by: Washingtonian Photo by: Worldakkam.com Photo by: www.biu.ac.il

4. Natural patterns like the intricate waves across the oceans; sand dunes on deserts; formation of typhoon
and others. These serves as clues to the rules that govern the flow of water, sand and air.

Waves Sand Dunes Typhoon

Photo by: HumanIPO Photo by: Science │ HowStuffWorks Photo by: Phys.org

PATTERNS AND REGULARITIES

Mathematics is all around us. As we discover more about our environment, we can mathematically
describe nature. The beauty of a flower, the majestic tree, even the rock formation exhibits nature’s sense
of symmetry.
Have you ever thought about how nature likes to arrange itself in patterns in order to act efficiently?
Nothing in nature happens without a reason, all of these patterns have an important reason to exist and they
also happen to be beautiful to watch.
Here are some patterns that are found in universe and nature:

Photo by: Academic Plus – Spirals

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 4
Cagayan State University
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Flowers
Photo by: Science ABC

Patterns in nature are visible regularities of form found in the natural world. These patterns recur in
different contexts and can be modelled mathematically. Natural patterns include symmetries, spirals,
meanders, waves, stripes, foams, cracks and trees.

TYPES OF PATTERNS

 SYMMETRY
Symmetry is pervasive in living things. Animals mainly have bilateral or mirror symmetry, as do the
leave of plants and some flowers such as orchids (see image of Flowers above). Plants often have radial
or rotational symmetry, as do many flowers and group of animals such as sea anemones. Fivefold
symmetry is found in the echinoderms, the group that includes starfish, sea urchins, and sea lilies.

Note that if you rotate the starfish in Figure 3 by 72°, you can still
achieve the same appearance as the original position. This known as the
rotational symmetry. The smallest measure of angle that a figure can be
rotated while still preserving the original position is called the angle of
rotation. A more common way of describing rotational symmetry is by
order of rotation.
A figure has a rotational symmetry of order n (n-fold rotational
1
symmetry) if of a complete turn leaves the figure unchanged. To compute
𝑛
Photo by: Wonderopolis for the angle of rotation, we use the formula
360° 360°
Angle of rotation = = = 72°
𝑛 5

The pattern on the snowflake repeat six times indicating that there is a 6-fold
symmetry. Using the formula, the angle of rotation is 60°.

360° 360°
Angle of rotation = = = 60°
𝑛 6

Photo by: The New York times

The butterfly image is symmetric about the axis indicated by the yellow line.
Note that the left and right portions are exactly the same. This type of
symmetry is called bilateral symmetry.

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 5
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 SPIRALS
Spirals are common in plants and in some animals, notably mollusks. For example, in the nautilus, a
cephalopod mollusk, each chamber of its shell is an approximate copy of the next one, scaled by a constant
factor and arranged in a logarithmic spiral. Given a modern understanding of fractals, a growth spiral can
be seen as a special case of self-similarity.

Nautilus
Photo by: Monterey Bay Aquarium

Fibonacci
Golden Ratio
Spiral shape inside the Nautilus
Photo by: ThoughCo

Photo by: Onno Eberhard

Photo by: Food Hacks – WonderHowTo

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 6
Cagayan State University
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 CHAOS, FLOWS, and MEANDERS

In mathematics, a dynamical system is chaotic if it is (highly) sensitive to initial conditions (the so-
called “butterfly effect”), which requires the mathematical properties of topological mixing and dense
periodic orbits.

Chaos Flow Meanders

Photo by: Science Photo library Photo by: ECstep Photo by: Geography Revision

 WAVES and DUNES

Waves are disturbances that carry energy as they move. Mechanical waves propagate through medium –
air or water, making it oscillate as they pass by. Wind waves are sea surface waves that create the
characteristic chaotic pattern of any large body of water, though their statistical behavior can be predicted
with wind wave models.

Waves Wave in stones Sand Dunes

Photo by: Pinterest Photo by: Greg Bulla Photo by: Unplash

Waves
Photo by: PASCO Scientific

Waves
Photo by: ProProfs

 BUBBLES and FOAM

A soap bubble forms a sphere, a surface with minimal area – the smallest possible surface area for the
volume enclosed. Two bubbles together form a more complex shape: the outer surfaces of both
bubbles are spherical; these surfaces are joined by a third spherical surface as the smaller bubble
bulges slightly into the larger one.

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 7
Cagayan State University
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Bubbles Foam
Photo by: Unsplash Photo by: Pinterest

 FRACTALS
A fractal is a never-ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar
across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing
feedback loop. Trees are natural fractals, patterns that repeat smaller and smaller copies of themselves
to create the biodiversity of a forest.

Photo by: Kottke.org Photo by: Jooinn

 TESSELLATION
A tessellation is a repeating pattern of polygons that
covers a flat surface with no gaps or overlaps.
Think about when you tile a floor. No gaps and no
overlapping tiles. There are regular tessellations (all the
same shape tiles) and irregular (a mix of shapes). Another
example is a honeycomb as shown on the right side.
Do you wonder why bees used hexagon in making
honeycomb and not any other polygons? The reason is that
more are will be covered using hexagon compared to other
polygons. The following computation prove this.

Photo by: Civil Eats

Packing problem involve finding the optimum method of filling up a given space such as cubic or
spherical container.
Suppose you have a circles of radius 1cm, each of which will then have an area of π cm2. We are
then going to fill a plane with these circles using square packing and hexagonal packing.

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 8
Cagayan State University
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For square packing, each square will have an area of 4 cm2. Note from the figure
6 that for each square, it can only fit one circle. The percentage of square’s are
covered by circles will be

For hexagonal packing, we can think of each hexagon as composed of six equilateral triangles with side
equal to 2 cm.
The area of each triangle is given by

Thus, the area of the hexagon is 6√3 cm2. Looking at Figure 7, there are 3
circles that could fit inside one hexagon (the whole circle in the middle and 6 one-
thirds of a circle), which gives total are as 3π cm2. The percentage of the hexagon’s
area covered by circles will be

Comparing the two percentages, we can clearly see that using the hexagons will cover a larger area
than when using squares.

THE FIBONACCI SEQUENCE

The Fibonacci sequence was first found by an Italian named Leonardo Pisano Bogollo (Fibonacci).
Fibonacci numbers are a sequence of whole numbers: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, ....This infinite sequence
is called the Fibonacci sequence. Here each term is the sum of the two preceding ones, starting from 0 and
1. This has been termed "nature's secret code". We can spot the Fibonacci sequence in the spiral patterns of
sunflowers, daisies, broccoli, cauliflowers, and seashells.
The Fibonacci sequence is represented as the spiral shown below. The spiral represents the pattern
of the Fibonacci numbers. This spiral starts with a rectangle whose length and width form the golden ratio
(≈1.618). This rectangle is partitioned into two squares. Then the squares are further partitioned. Connecting
the corners of the boxes, the spiral is drawn inside these squares. The larger the numbers in the Fibonacci
sequence, the ratio becomes closer to the golden ratio.

The puzzle of rabbits explains the wonder behind this Fibonacci sequence.

 Two newborn rabbits are left in the field. They are still one pair at the end of the first month.
 They mate and produce a new pair, so there are 2 pairs in the field, at the end of the second month.
 The first pair produces the second pair, but the second pair is left without breeding, so 3 pairs in all at
the end of the third month.
 The original pair produces another pair, the second pair produces their first pair and the third pair
remains without breeding, making 5 pairs.

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 9
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 The sequence continues in this pattern and at the end of the nth month, the number of rabbits in the
field is equal to the sum of the number of mature pairs (n-2)th month and the number of pairs alive last
month(n-1)th month. This happens to be the nth Fibonacci number.

The sequence encountered in the rabbit problem 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377,
…. is called the Fibonacci sequence and its terms the Fibonacci numbers.

GOLDEN RATIO IN NATURE

It is often said that math contains the answers to most of universe’s questions. Math manifests itself
everywhere. One such example is the Golden Ratio. This famous Fibonacci sequence has fascinated
mathematicians, scientist and artists for many hundreds of years. The Golden Ratio manifests itself in many
places across the universe, including right here on Earth, it is part of Earth’s nature and it is part of us.

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 10
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1. Flower petals
Number of petals in a flower is often one of the following numbers: 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 or 55.
For example, the lily has three petals, buttercups have five of them, the chicory has 21 of them, the
daisy has often 34 or 55 petals, etc.
2. Faces
Faces, both human and nonhuman, abound with examples of the Golden Ratio. The mouth
and nose are each positioned at golden sections of the distance between the eyes and the bottom of
the chin. Similar proportions can been seen from the side, and even the eye and ear itself.
3. Body parts
The Golden Section is manifested in the structure of the human body. The human body is
based on Phi and the number 5.The number 5 appendages to the torso, in the arms, leg and head. 5
appendages on each of these, in the fingers and toes and 5 openings on the face. Animal bodies
exhibit similar tendencies.
4. Seed heads
Typically, seeds are produced at the center, and then migrate towards the outside to fill all
the space. Sunflowers provide a great example of these spiraling patterns.
5. Fruits, Vegetables and Trees
Spiraling patterns can be found on pineapples and cauliflower. Fibonacci numbers are seen
in the branching of trees or the number of leaves on a floral stem; numbers like 4 are not. 3’s and
5’s, however, are abundant in nature.
6. Shells
Snail shells and nautilus shells follow the logarithmic spiral, as does the cochlea of the inner
ear. It can also be seen in the horns of certain goats, and the shape of certain spider’s webs.
7. Spiral
Galaxies Spiral galaxies are the most common galaxy shape. The Milky Way has several
spiral arms, each of them a logarithmic spiral of about 12 degrees.
8. Hurricanes
It’s amazing how closely the powerful swirls of hurricane match the Fibonacci sequence.

GOLDEN RATIO IN ARTS

The golden ratio can be used to achieve beauty, balance and harmony in art, architecture and design.
It can be used as a tool in art and design to achieve balance in the composition. Check out some examples
of golden ratio in arts.

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 11
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1. The exterior dimension of the Pathernon in Athens, Greece embodies the golden ratio.

2. In “Timaeus” Plato describes five possible regular solids that relate to the golden ratio which is now
known as Platonic Solids. He also considers the golden ratio to be the most bringing of all mathematical
relationships.

3. Euclid was the first to give definition of the golden ratio as “a dividing line in the extreme and mean
ratio” in his book the “Elements”. He proved the link of the numbers to the construction of the pentagram,
which is now known as golden ratio. Each intersections to the other edges of a pentagram is a golden
ratio. Also the ratio of the length of the shorter segment to the segment bounded by the two intersecting
lines is a golden ratio.

4. Leonardo da Vinci was into many interests such as invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science,
music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, botany, writing, history and cartography.
He used the golden ratio to define the fundamental portions in his works. He incorporated the golden
ratio in his own paintings such as the Vitruvian Man, The Last Supper, Monalisa and St. Jerome in the
Wilderness.

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 12
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5. Michaelangelo di Lodovico Simon was considered the greatest living artists of his time. He used golden
ratio in his painting “The Creation of Adam” which can be seen on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. His
painting used the golden ratio showing how God’s finger and Adam’s finger meet precisely at the golden
ratio point of the weight and the height of the area that contains them.

. Rafaello Sanzio da Urbino or more popularly known as Raphael was also a painter and architect from the
Rennaisance. In his painting “The School of Athens,”, the division between the figures in the painting
and their proportions are distributed using the golden ration. The golden triangle and pentagram can also
be found in Raphael’s painting “Crucifixion”.

7. The golden ratio can also be found in the works of other renowned painters such as
a.) Sandro Botticelli (Birth of Venus);
b.) George-Pierre Surat (“Bathers at Assinieres”, “Bridge of Courbevoie” and “A Sunday on La
Grande Jette”), and
c.) Salvador Dali (“The Sacrament of the Last Supper”).

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 13
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GOLDEN RATIO IN ARCHITECTURE

Some of the architectural structures that exhibit the application of the Golden ratio are the following:

1. The Great Pyramid of Giza built 4700 BC in Ahmes Papyrus of Egypt is with proportion according to a
“Golden Ratio”. The length of each side of the base is 756 feet with a height of 481 feet. The ratio of the
base to the height is roughly 1.5717, which is close to the Golden ratio.

2. Notre Dame is a Gothic Cathedral in Paris, which was built in between 1163 and 1250. It appears to have
a golden ratio in a number of its key proportions of designs.

3. The Taj Mahal in India used the golden ratio in its construction and was completed in 1648. The order
and proportion of the arches of the Taj Mahal on the main structure keep reducing proportionately following
the golden ratio.

4. The Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres in Paris, France also exhibits the Golden ratio.

5. In the United Nation Building, the window configuration reveal golden proportion.

6. The Eifel Tower in Paris, France, erected in 1889 is an iron lattice. The base is broader while it narrows
down the top, perfectly following the golden ratio.

7. The CN Tower in Toronto, the tallest tower and freestanding structure in the world, contains the golden
ratio in its design. The ratio of observation deck at 342 meters to the total height of 553.33 is 0.618 or phi,
the reciprocal of phi.

APPLICATIONS OF MATHEMATICS IN THE WORLD

In our daily life, we use mathematics directly or indirectly in various fields. The application of
mathematical methods in different fields such as science, engineering, business, computer science and
industry is a combination of mathematical science and specialized knowledge. For example, statistics,
combinatorics, and graph theory are used by investigators to solve crimes.
Other applications of mathematics are in forensic science, medicine, engineering, information
technology, cryptography, archaeology, social sciences, political science and other fields.

1. In forensic, mathematics is applied specifically the differential and integral calculus to clarify
the blurred image to clear image. Another application of calculus is optimization (maximize or
minimize) surface areas, volumes, profit and cost analysis, projectile motion, etc.
2. In medical field, much of a function of a protein is determined by its shape and how the pieces
move. Many drugs are designed to change the shape or motions of a protein by modeling using

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 14
Cagayan State University
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geometry and related areas. Mathematics is also being applied in the development of medicine
to cure diseases.

3. In fluid dynamics, engineers use numerical analysis in phenomena involving heat, electricity
and magnetism, relativistic mechanics, quantum mechanics and other theoretical constructs.

4. In Information Technology, modern computer are invented through the help of mathematics.
An important area of applications of mathematics in the development of formal mathematical
theories related to the development of computer science. Computer science development includes
logic, relations, functions, basic set theory, counting techniques, graph theory, combinatorics,
discrete probability, recursion, recurrence relations and number theory, computer-oriented
numerical analysis and Operation Research techniques.

5. Cryptography is a combination of both mathematics and computer science and is affiliated

closely with information theory, computer security and engineering. It is used in applications
present in technologically advanced societies, examples include the security of ATM cards,
computer passwords and electronic commerce.

6. In archaeology, archaeologists use a variety of mathematical and statistical techniques to present

the data from archaeological surveys and try to find patterns to shed on past human behavior an
in carbon dating artifacts.

7. In Social Sciences such as economics, sociology, psychology and linguistics all now make
extensive use of mathematical models, using the tools of calculus, probability, game theory, and
network theory.

8. In Economics, mathematics such as matrices, probability and statistics are used. The models may
be stochastic or deterministic, linear or non-linear, static or dynamic, continuous or discrete and
all types of algebraic, differential, difference and integral equations arise for the solution of these
models.

9. In political Science, political analysts study past election results to see changes in voting patterns
and the influence of various factors on voting behavior or switching of votes among political
parties and mathematical models for Conflict Resolution using Game Theory and Statistics.

10. In music and arts, the rhythm that we find in all music notes is the result of innumerable
permutations and combinations. Music theorists understand musical structure and communicate
new ways of hearing music by applying set theory, abstract algebra, and number theory.

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 15
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APPLICATION

1. Which of the figures can be used to continue the series given below?

2. Which of the figures, you think best fits the series below?

3. Which of the figures can be used to continue the series given below?

4. Which number should come next in this series?

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 16
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5. Which number should replace the question mark “?”

FEEDBACK

Activity #1.

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD
 Republic of the Philippines 17
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REFERENCES:

Book/s: Aufman Richard, et. al., Mathematics in the Modern World, 14th Edition

Online
https://www.scribd.com/document/413135891/mathematics-in-the-modern-worl

https://pdfcoffee.com/mathematics-in-the-modern-world-17-pdf-free.html

https://www.slideshare.net/MuhsinaPP1/mathematics-in-nature-92982331

Instructor: Melowin Bibes Mamba, ECE, ECT Subject: MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD