● Identify patterns in nature and

regular occurences in the world

● Argue about the nature of

mathematics, what is it, how it
is expressed, represented, and
OBJECTIVE used

S ● Express appereciation for

mathematics as a human
endeavor, and

● Ariculate the importance of

mathematics in ones’s life
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 NATURE OF
MATHEMATICS
 Is Mathematics
Invented or Discovered?
Mathematics is Much of Mathematics is
Partly Invented Discovered
The initial impetus for
The beginning of
mathematics was invention, but
mathematics is a human
much of what followed next were
invention and is nearly
discoveries. One of the early
as old as humanity itself,
mathematical discoveries which
it began as a method to
had a huge impact in architecture
represent thoughts about
and in the history of the
quantity, form, pattern,
development of mathematics itself
and change. 3
 What is Mathematics?
Mathematics has no universally accepted
definition. We shall quote some definitions
proposed by famous mathematicians.
a. Mathematics is the science of quantity.
–Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
b. It is the science of indirect measurement.
–Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
c. Mathematics is a science that draws necessary
conclusions. –Benjamin Pierce (1809-1880)
d. All mathematics is symbolic logic. –Bernard
Russel (1872-1970)
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 Our definition of mathematics is one which we base from the
experience many students might have had about mathematics,
and experience teachers had while sheperding them in their
mathematics education.

MATHEMATICS IS A FORM OF
LANGUAGE
IT IS ALSO A BODY OF KNOWLEDGE

5
 MATHEMATICS AND
PATTERNS

On the top of the early human’s need to describe

quantity, they also needed a language to describe and
predict patterns in nature. The Ishago bone for example,
was an early mathematical exercise to count the cycle of
lunar phases as they relate to the menstrual cycle of
adult women.

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Frequently observed Patterns in nature & the world
Pattern Description
Honeycomb Nest build by bees. Made from beeswax and composed of cells in hexagon, sometimes
pentagon or heptagon.
Snowflakes A feathery snow crystal which nucleated from dust particles suspended in the
atmosphere. Hexagonal in structure.
Tiger stripes The stripes on the tiger are evenly spaced and perpendicular to the spine.

Hyena’s spots The spots on hyenas are shaped in a pattern that helps also with camouflage.

Sunflower Displays many patterns, the most prominent are intersecting families of spirals.

Snail’s shell Has the shape of a spiral.

Flower’s petals The number of petals of a flower are observed to follow the following pattern, 3, 5, 8,
13….
Weather patterns This sequence of patterns produces a cycle such as dry monsoon, summer autumn
winter spring, habagat wind patterns.
Human populations Demographic distribution of people is observed to follow a pattern.

Human productivity Human productivity in many organization is observed to follow the 80:20 percent rule.

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 HONEYCOMB
The link between the unique shape of
honeycombs and the mathematical property of
hexagons was formally stated by Pappus of
Alexandria, the last ancient greek
mathematician. Pappus pointed out that
triangles, squares, and hexagons are the three
regular polygons that can tile a plane without
gaps. 8
 SNOWFLAKES
In 1611 Johannes Kepler, the mathematician who first gave us the
laws of planetary motion, was curious why snowflakes often
display a six-fold symmetry.
Snowflakes are an example of fractals. Fractals are objects whose
smaller parts look similar to the bigger part, the general shape of
snowflakes, for example is a hexagon, but when magnified under
a magnifying glass, its smaller parts look like tiny reproductions
of entire snowflake. This repetition of shape at the miniscule level
is called self-similarity.
Computer programmers use fractals to generate the in-game
environment of many computer games.
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 TIGER STRIPES
The striking regularity in pattern and distribution of coloration on
animal skin got one mathematician so interested he proposed a
mathematical theory for this phenomenon. Alan Turing, the
famous mathematician credited for breaking the Nazi Enigma
code in World War II, proposed that two substances were behind
this pattern. He called them Morphogens. These morphogens
reacted with each other diffused through he embryo according to
a system of equations, which he called “reaction-diffusion
equations.” One morphogen activated the manifestation of a
stripe color, the other inhibited it.
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PATTERNS IN SUNFLOWER
The distribution of seeds on its face spirals in clockwise
directions. The seeds start at the center and extend outwards to
the petals, with each seed placed at an angle from the
neighboring seeds producing a spiral configuration. The angle is
137.5 degrees. The angle has to be precise and this is called
Golden Angle.

FIBONACCI SEQUENCE Fn:

It is a list of ordered natural numbers: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13,
21, 34, etc. the first two are 1 and 1 , and the succeeding
natural numbers are the sum of two consecutive numbers 11
 SNAIL’S SHELL
The snail’s shell’s outward growth ha an uncanny resemblance to
a spiral. Two geometric patterns are at play in their shells. First,
the spiral which also resembles the distribution of seeds in a
sunflower, and second, the fractals. The shell’s configuration is
self-repeating, it repeats its structure as the shell grows in size. In
addition, the spiral of the shell traces the opposite corners of the
squares generated by Fibonacci sequence.

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 WEATHER PATTERNS
Weather is attended by many patterns. The first pattern early
humans came to see is the cycle of night and day. The sun is
seen in the sky 12 hours on average and disappears for the next
12 hours before it appears again.
Seasons also follow a cycle. In the Philippines, the changing
seasons are marked by a change in wind direction and quantity of
rainfall.
In mathematical language, “the season is habagat from June to
October, and amihan for the rest of the year.

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 PETALS OF FLOWERS
Petals of many flowers display the distribution of Fibonacci
sequence. The number of flower petals often observed in nature
are 3,5,8,13,21,34,55, and 89.

14
 HUMAN POPULATIONS
Those who belong to AB class raise two to three on average, but
those in the lower classes raise five. The pattern here is one
between income and number of children or income and family
size.
This pattern is also replicated at the national level. Philippines,
has been improving in economic standing for three decades as
measured in GDP growth rate, but that is accompanied by
declining fertility rate.
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 BUSINESS CYCLE
The swings of ups and downs in GDP growth rate also reflects a
pattern of economic phenomenon observed in many countries. It
is the business cycle of growth and decline. Economic
development measured in GDP growth rate does not
progressively increase uninterrupted. It seems always to dip for
some interval of time before it rises again to a new height.

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 HUMAN PRODUCTIVITY
Productivity of people is also observed to follow a pattern. This
pattern is given a name, 80:20 percent rule, also called the law of
vital few. This rule is a consequence of an observation that people
working in an organization do not perform in equal measure in
relation to productivity. Often it is only 20% who produce 80% of
the group’s entire output.

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 Fibonacci
Numbers and
Golden Ratio

18
 Fibonacci numbers
Is a list of integers that starts with 0 or 1 followed
by 1, and proceeds with enumerating the rest of
the elements based on a rule that each element is
the sum of the preceding two integers. The list is
named after LEONARDO PISANO BIGOLLO also
known as LEONARDO FIBONACCI, an Italian
mathematician who wrote the book Liber Abaci in
1202. the book contained Leonardo’s description
of Hindu-Arabic numeration system.

F1= 1, F2=1, and Fn= Fn-1 + Fn-2, for n ≥ 3, where n

is a positive integer.

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 Golden Ratio
Euclid’s book Elements gives the first written
definition of what we take to mean the Golden
Ratio. A line segment is said to follow the golden
ratio if the “whole line is to the greater segment as
the greater is to the lesser”.

The golden ratio is also called by other names:

golden mean, golden proportion, golden cut, divine
section, divine proportion, extreme and mean
ratio, and medial section.

The Golden Ratio is often represented by Phi. Its

approximate value it 1.61803... but more accurately is
represented by (sqrt. of 5 + 1) / 2.
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Fibonacci Numbers and the Golden Ratio

Golden Ratio

21
Golden Rectangle
The golden retangle, golden triangle, and the
golden angle are three geometric shapes
known to contain the golden ratio and are
considered to be among the reasons behind
the aesthetic appeal of many artistic pieces
past and present. We could not be certain,
however, if great artist form distant past
deliberately used the ratio to set the
proportions of their art, since no explicit
written accounts of that had been discovered
yet.

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 Golden Angle

The golden angle is created by sectioning the

circumference of a circle according to the golden
ratio.
The golden angle is seen in the morphology and
development of plant, and in particular, in the
arrangement leaves on a stem and in the
arrangement of florets in an in florescence.

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 a. Mathematics helps
organize patterns in the
world.
b. Mathematics help predict
the behavior of nature

Uses of and many phenomena.

c. Mathematics helps control
Mathematic nature and occurences in
the world for our own
s good.
d. Mathematics has
applications in many
human endeavors.

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