By studying patterns in nature, we gain a deeper understanding of the world in which we live.

We are surrounded by a kaleidoscope of visual patterns – both living and non-living. Clouds, trees, rocks, sunflowers, ants at work, birds flocking. Our sun’s rays breaking through heavy clouds, the breathtaking drama of storm cells, the algorithmic nature of sea shells, and the ordered geometry of spider webs. We marvel at the vaulting beauty of mountain peaks and the cracks, fissures, shapes, and colors of rocks.

Our ears sense and appreciate patterns as well. Whenever we hear music of any variety, we hear patterns that affect our emotions in many ways. We hear patterns in animal sounds whether it is a dog barking, a bird chirping, or a person speaking.

There are patterns in the dynamic behavior of family life, a traffic jam, or moving with a crowd of people at a football game. There are invisible interdependencies within coral reefs, or food chains, or the Internet.

Our mental processes and the way we think are also patterned. These intellectual patterns such as mathematics are templates upon which we organize our thinking about processes that take place in this world.

Time is a pattern that is experienced by all organisms. A flower opens its petals at dawn, birds fly south in the autumn, locusts swarm every 17 years and the circadian rhythms of life. The colors we see, sound coming into our ears, and ocean waves are all patterns in time.

But patterns in nature do not stand alone. They thrive only because they are part of a complex web of interrelationships. Any given object or group always has an effect on something else. A fish is part of a fish school. The fish school is part of an ecosystem which is part of a food chain that sustains otherwise unrelated species. Everything is connected. The system of connectivity is a pattern in itself.

Patterns are an outward manifestation of an ordered structure and are clues as to how things are organized and connected. By studying patterns and their connections at all levels, we are better able to appreciate and understand living organisms, non-living objects, and our world. In this way, the study of a fish school is a study of our entire planet.

Whether we are city or country dwellers, most humans regularly enjoy both the aesthetic and the spiritual aspects of patterns. We absorb and enjoy patterns with our senses of smell, taste, vision, hearing, touch, and thinking. A flower is beautiful because of its patterns of petals, seeds, color, smell, and touch. In early morning light, we marvel at the glow and structure of the rocky iridescent pillars at Bryce Canyon National Park, or are amazed at the intricacy of a bird's feathers and the behavioral patterns that govern its wings and tail as it manages flight.

Some of us see more patterns as we view a flower in the context of its environment. We enjoy how a flower fits into the bee’s behavior patterns. We are fascinated by the social system of bees and ants and how these systems interrelate with their environment. We acquire a feeling of great fulfillment and joy as we absorb these beautiful interrelated patterns that surround us. We view higher level patterns as a manifestation of relationships between smaller or lower level patterns. And we acquire a feeling of great fulfillment and joy as we absorb the connectivity of life that surrounds us.

The great majority of us are satisfied to thrill at and observe what our senses permit us to absorb. We ask nothing more. This activity of observation and sharing provides us a lifetime of cherished experiences. It is a "right brain" activity which we sometimes call "art". The role of art is to blend proximate imagery with more distant meaning. The melding of parts we understand with those given as new into larger patterns that are hopefully coherent enough to offer some intuition. Art then participates in our struggle to make order out of an infinitely varying patterns of nature.

But, some of us are overwhelmed with all of this exploding beauty and obvious order. We want to know how and why these beautiful forms exist. We want to absorb the aesthetic and spiritual beauty of our world but we also have the urge to somehow explore, discover, and understand nature's order and interrelationships. We endeavor to learn more by organizing the information at hand. This level of pattern appreciation is the process of performing activities that will give us a clearer picture of what is really happening. These activities could be gathering empirical evidence, analysis, or synthesis. A "left-brain" activity that can ultimately become part of our "right-brain" aesthetic experience.

We are fascinated by patterns such as the center a sunflower where the florets are laid out in a definite geometric order. As one follows the floret pattern from the center to the periphery, it is easy to see both left and right spiral patterns. If you were to magnify the photo and measure the angle between one floret and its outbound neighbor along a spiral, you’d find that there is a constant angle of 137.51 degrees. These empirical observations lead to questions (and further research) about why this arrangement exists. In fact, we find that this and other spiral arrangements are ubiquitous in nature. We see spirals in sea shells, sheep horns, strawberries, and pine cones – to name a few. This process of exploration and discovery can be a stunning synthesis of art and science.

Another large group of natural patterns that can be empirically observed are categorized as “fractal”. A fractal pattern looks the same close up as it does far away. A magnified portion appears to be the same general shape as the main body of the pattern. This characteristic is called “self similarity”. One can easily observe fractal patterns in trees, ferns, and the structure of human lungs.

By making detailed observations, we hope to describe patterns more rigorously. This analytical process, a pattern in itself, helps us understand how a pattern becomes a pattern in the first place. It is the precursor to defining the real cause/effect relationship that results in both pattern formation and the interrelationship between patterns.

So, studying patterns in nature brings forth a litany of joys. At the very least, we are rewarded with aesthetic treasures. By bringing together art and science, we gain deeper insights into nature's patterns. When we observe patterns in nature, we discover that everything is connected. With this insight, we gain a deeper understanding of interrelationships in the world of nature in which we live.

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