“What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful unintelligible perfectly innocent  speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself … The noise of it and the thickness of it walls you off from the rest of the world …. It is the voice of the present moment … It is the festival of rain” – Thomas Merton on the sound of...

In the 1950’s, Rachel Carson, in her book “Silent Spring”, sounded a warning siren that was heard around the world. She told the story of a chemical death caused by man’s ignorance as he attempts to control his environment, free himself from pests, artificially enhance the growth of his food supply, and “manage” the ecology of flora and fauna on this planet. By describing relationships between various living species and their...

“At the heart of the universe is a steady, insistent beat: the sound of cycles in sync. It pervades nature at every scale from the nucleus to the cosmos. Every night along the tidal rivers of Malaysia, thousands of fireflies congregate in the mangroves and flash in unison, without any leader or cue from the environment. Trillions of electrons march in lockstep in a superconductor, enabling electricity to flow through it with zero...

Because we humans are pattern seeking organisms, symmetry has always fascinated us. We view symmetrical objects such as the regular repeating patterns of ancient pottery, weavings, and tilings as pleasing, proportioned, balanced, and harmonious. Patterns in Nature also possess symmetry in space or in time. Since the description or classification of many patterns in Nature is difficult,  symmetry is a handy “device” for...