Natures Numbers The Unreal Reality
Natures Numbers The Unreal Reality
Natures Numbers The Unreal Reality
NATURE'S
NUMBERS
IAN STEWART
• BasicBooks
A DIvIsIOn of HarperCollinsPubllshers
The Science Masters Series is a global publishing venture
Published by BasicBooks,
Stewart, Ian.
ISBN (}...465-07273-9
510-dc20 ClP
95 96 97 98 +IRRD 9 8 7 6 54 3 2
CON TEN T S
6 Broken Symmetry 73
Index 155
PROLOGUE
I have a dream.
I am surrounded by-nothing. Not empty space , for there
is no space to be empty. Not blackness , for there is nothing to
be black. Simply an absence , waiting to become a presence. I
think commands: let there be space. But what kind of space? I
have a choice: three-dimensional space , multidimensional
space, even curved space.
I choose.
Another command, and the space is filled with an all
pervading fluid , which swirls in waves and vortices , here a
placid swell , there a frothing, turbulent maelstrom.
I paint space blue , draw white streamlines in the fluid to
bring out the flow patterns .
I place a small red sphere in the fluid. I t hovers , unsup
ported , ignorant of the chaos around it, until I give the word.
Then it slides off along a streamline. I compress myself to one
hundredth of my size and will myself onto the surface of the
sphere , to get a bird 's-eye view of unfolding events . Every few
seconds , I place a green marker in the flow to record the
sphere 's passing. If I touch a marker, it blossoms like a time-
vii
viii P ROLOGUE
legs , cats have four, insects have six , and spiders have eight.
Starfish have five arms (or ten , eleven , even seventeen,
depending on the species ) . Clover normally has three leaves :
the superstition that a four-leaf clover is lucky reflects a deep
seated belief that exceptions to patterns are special . A very
curious pattern indeed occurs in the petals of flowers. In
nearly all flowers , the number of petals is one of the numbers
that occur in the strange sequence 3, 5, 8, 1 3 , 2 1 , 34, 5 5 , 89. For
instance, lilies have three petals , buttercups have five, many
delphiniums have eight, marigolds have thirteen , asters have
twenty-one , and most daisies have thirty-four, fifty-five , or
eighty-nine. You don't find any other numbers anything like as
often. There is a definite pattern to those numbers , but one that
takes a little digging out : each number is obtained by adding
the previous two numbers together. For exampl e , 3 + 5 = 8,
5 + 8 = 1 3 , and so on. The same numbers can b e found i n the
spiral patterns of seeds in the head of a sunflower. This par
ticular pattern was noticed many centuries ago and has been
widely studied ever since , but a really satisfactory explana
tion was not given until 1 9 9 3 . It is to be found in chapter 9 .
Numerology is the easiest-and consequently t h e most
dangerous-method for finding patterns. It is easy because
anybody can do it, and dangerous for the same reason. The
difficulty lies in distinguishing significant numerical patterns
from accidental ones. Here's a case in point . Kepler was fasci
nated with mathematical patterns in nature , and he devoted
much of his life to looking for them in the behavior of the
planets. He devised a simple and tidy theory for the existence
of precisely six planets (in his time only Mercury, Venus,
Earth, Mars , Jupiter, and Saturn were known). He also discov
ered a very strange pattern relating the orbital period of a
T H E N A TU R A L O R D E R S
II
14 N A T U R E 'S N UMB E R S
FIGURE I.
Computer model of the evolution of an eye. Each step in the computa
tion corresponds to about two hundred years of biological evolution.
24 N A TU R E ' S N UMB E R S
gaps, The reason is that each resonance has its own idiosyn
cratic dynamics ; some cause clustering , others do the oppo
site. It all depends on the precise numbers.
Another function of mathematics is prediction. By under
standing the motion of heavenly bodies , astronomers could
predict lunar and solar eclipses and the return of comets .
They knew where to point their telescopes to find asteroids
that had passed behind the Sun, out of observation ?.! contact.
B ecause the tides are controlled mainly by the position of the
Sun and Moon relative to the Earth , they could predict tides
many years ahead. (The chief complicating factor in making
such predictions is not astronomy: it is the shape of the conti
nents and the profile of the ocean depths, which can delay or
advance a high tide. However, these stay pretty much the
same from one century to the next , so that once their effects
have been understood it is a routine task to compensate for
them . ) In contrast, it is much harder to predict the weather.
We know j ust as much about the mathematics of weather as
we do about the mathematics of tides , but weather has an
inherent unpredictability. Despite this , meteorologists can
make effective short-term predictions of weather patterns
say, three or four days in advance. The unpredictability of the
weather, however, has nothing at all to do with randomness
a topic we will take up in chapter 8, when we discuss the con
cept of chaos.
The role of mathematics goes beyond mere prediction.
Once you understand how a system works , you don 't have to
remain a passive observer. You can attempt to control the sys
tem , to make it do what you want. It pays not to be too ambi
tious : weather control , for example, is in its infancy-we can't
make rain with any great success, even when there are rain
clouds about. Examples of control systems range from the
W H A T M A T H E M A T i C S is F O R 27
aim at it. But anything you can see, your competitors can see,
too. The pursuance of safe research will impoverish us all. The
really important breakthroughs are always unpredictable. It is
their very unpredictability that makes them important : they
change our world in ways we didn't see coming.
Moreover, goal-oriented research often runs up against a
brick wall , and not only in mathematics. For examp le, it took
approximately eighty years of intense engineering effort to
develop the photocopying machine after the basic principle of
xerography had been discovered by scientists . The first fax
machine was invented over a century ago , but it didn't work
fast enough or reliably enough. The principle of holography
(three-dimensional pictures, see your credit card) was discov
ered over a century ago , but nobody then knew how to pro
duce the necessary beam of coherent light-light with all its
waves in step. This kind of delay is not at all unusual in
industry , let alone in more intellectual areas of research, and
the impasse is usually broken only when an unexpected new
idea arrives on the scene.
There is nothing wrong with goal-oriented research as a
way of achieving specific feasible goals. But the dreamers and
the mavericks must be allowed some free rein , too. Our world
is not static : new problems constantly arise, and old answers
often stop working. Like Lewis Carroll 's Red Queen , we must
run very fast in order to stand still.
CHAPTER J
When we hear the word "mathematics , " the first thing that
springs to mind is numbers . Numbers are the heart of mathe
matics , an all-pervading influence, the raw materials out of
which a great deal of mathematics is forged. But numbers on
their own form only a tiny part of mathematics. I said earlier
that we live in an intensely mathematical worl d , but that
whenever possible the mathematics is sensibly tucked under
the rug to make our world " user-friendly. " However, some
mathematical ideas are so basic to our world that they cannot
stay hidden , and numbers are an especially prominent exam
ple. Without the ability to count eggs and subtract change, for
instance, we could not even buy food. And so we teach arith
metic. To everybody. Like reading and writing, its absence is
a major handicap . And that creates the overwhelming impres
sion that mathematics is mostly a matter of numbers-which
isn't really true. The numerical tricks we learn in arithmetic
are only the tip of an iceberg. We can run our everyday lives
without much more , but our culture cannot run our society by
using such limited ingredients . Numbers are just one type of
obj ect that mathematicians think about. In this chapter, I will
II
12 N A TU R E ' S N UMB E R S
try to show you some of the others and explain why they, too ,
are important.
Inevitably my starting point has to be numbers . A large
part of the early prehistory of mathematics can be summed up
as the discovery, by various civilizations , of a wider and
wider range of things that deserved to be called numbers . The
simplest are the numbers we use for counting. In fact , count
ing began long before there were symbols like 1 , 2, 3 , because
it is possible to count without using numbers at all-say, by
counting on your fingers . You can work out that "I have two
hands and a thumb of camels " by folding down fingers as
your eye glances over the camels . You don't actually have to
have the concept of the number " eleven " to keep track of
whether anybody is stealing your camels. You just have to
notice that next time you seem to have only two hands of
camels-so a thumb of camels is missing.
You can also record the count as scratches on pieces of
wood or bone. Or you can make tokens to use as counters
clay disks with pictures of sheep on them for counting sheep ,
or disks with pictures of camels on them for counting camels .
A s the animals parade past you, you drop tokens into a bag
one token for each animal . The use of symbols for numbers
probably developed about five thousand years ago , when such
counters were wrapped in a clay envelope. It was a nuisance
to break open the clay covering every time the accountants
wanted to check the contents, and to make another one when
they had finished. So people put special marks on the outside
of the envelope summarizing what was inside. Then they real
ized that they didn't actually need any counters inside at all :
they could j ust make t h e same marks o n clay tablets .
It's amazing how long it can take to see the obvious . But of
course it's only obvious now.
W H A T M A T H E M A T i C S is ABOUT II
pIe. But what about the other possibilities? The hint that I
mentioned earlier tells us that the single vowel in SHIP can
not disappear altogether. That leaves only the first possibility:
that there is always one vowel, but it hops from position 3 to
position 2. However, that can 't be done by changing only one
letter ! You have to move , in one step , from a vowel at position
3 and a consonant at position 2 to a consonant at position 3
and a vowel at position 2 . That implies that two letters must
change , which is illegal. Q.E . D . , as Euclid used to say.
A mathematician would write the proof out in a much
more formal style, something like the textbook model , but the
important thing is to tell a convincing story. Like any good
story, it has a beginning and an end, and a story line that gets
you from one to the other without any logical holes appear
ing. Even though this is a very simple example , and it isn't
standard mathematics at all , it illustrates the essentials : in
particular, the dramatic difference between an argument that
is genuinely convincing and a hand-waving argument that
sounds plausible but doesn't really gel. I hope it also put you
through some of the emotional experiences of the creative
mathematician : frustration at the intractability of what ought
to be an easy question, elation when light dawned, suspicion
as you checked whether there were any holes in the argu
ment, aesthetic satisfaction when you decided the idea really
was O,K. and realized how neatly it cut through all the appar
ent complications. Creative mathematics is just like this-but
with more serious subject matter.
Proofs must be convincing to be accepted by mathemati
cians. There have been many cases where extensive numeri
cal evidence suggested a completely wrong answer. One noto
rious example concerns prime numbers-numbers that have
44 N A T U R E ' S N UMB E R S
you worry about being hit by a meteorite? The odds are about
one in a trillion. But mathematics piles logical deductions on
top of each other, and if any step is wrong the whole edifice
may tumble. If you have stated as a fact that all numbers
behave in some manner, and there is just one that does not,
then you are wrong, and everything you have built on the
basis of that incorrect fact is thrown into doubt.
Even the very best mathematicians have on occasion
claimed to have proved something that later turned out not to
be so-their proof had a subtle gap , or there was a simple
error in a calculation, or they inadvertently assumed some
thing that was not as rock-solid as they had imagined . S o ,
over t h e centuries, mathematicians have learned to b e
extremely critical of proofs . Proofs knit the fabric of mathe
matics together, and if a single thread is weak, the entire fab
ric may unravel.
CHAPTER 4
47
48 N A T U R E ' S N UMB E R S
unti nctured reaso n . I do not see him in this light. I do not think
that anyone who has p ored over the contents of that box which
which, though p artly dispers e d , have come down to us, can see
him like that. Newton was not the fi rst o f the age of reaso n . He
was the last o f the magicians , the last o f the Babylonians and
Sumerians , the last great mind wh ich looked out on the visible
and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to
1 00 -
50 -
o T
o TIME 5 10
50
�
§ 0 �----�--��---.---'r--.---1
W 10
>
TIME
-50
FIGURE 2.
Calculus in a nutshell. Three mathematical patterns determined by a
cannonbal l : height , velocity, and acceleration. The pattern of
heights , which is what we naturally observe , is compli cated. Newton
realized that the pattern of velocities is simpler, while the pattern of
accelerations is simpler still. The two basic operations of calculu s ,
differentiation a n d integration, l e t us p a s s fr o m a n y of these patterns
to any other. So we can work with the simp lest , acceleration, and
deduce the one we really want-height.
52 N A T U R E ' S N U MBE R S
5 0 , 4 0 , 3 0 , 2 0 , 1 0 , 0 , - 1 0 , - 2 0 , - 3 0 , -40 , - 5 0 .
-10, -10, -10, -10, -10, -10, -10, -10, -10, -10, -10.
I think you will agree that the pattern here is extremely sim
ple. The ball undergoes a constant downward acceleration of
10 m/sec2 • (The true figure is about 9 . 8 1 m/sec 2 , depending on
whereabouts on the Earth you perform the experiment. But 1 0
is easier t o think about . )
How can w e explain this constant that is hiding among the
dynamic variables? When all else is flux, why is the accelera
tion fixed? One attractive explanation has two elements. The
first is that the Earth must be pulling the ball downward; that
i s , there is a gravitational force that acts on the ball . It is rea
sonable to expect this force to remain the same at different
heights above the ground . Indeed, we feel weight because
gravity pulls our bodies downward , and we still weigh the
same if we stand at the top of a tall building. Of course, this
appeal to everyday observation does not tell us what happens
T H E C O N S T A N T S OF C H A N G E 51
That 's it. Its great virtue is that it is valid for any system of
masses and forces , including masses and forces that change
over time. We could not have anticipated this universal
applicability from the argument that led us to the law; but it
turns out to be so.
Newton stated three laws of motion , but the modern
approach views them as three aspects of a single mathemati-
54 N A T U R E ' S N UMBE R S
6.
62 N A TU R E ' S N UMB E R S
Strings vibrate much too fast for the naked eye to see any
one instantaneous shape , but the Greeks found important evi
dence for the idea that a string can vibrate at many different
frequencies, They showed that the pitch depends on the posi
tions of the nodes-places along the length of the string
which remain stationary. You can test this on a violin , banj o ,
o r guitar. When the string is vibrating in i t s " fundamental "
frequency-that is, with the lowest possible pitch-only the
end points are at rest. If you place a finger against the center
of the string , creating a node, and then pluck the string , it pro
duces a note one octave higher. If you place your finger one
third of the way along the string , you actually create two
nodes (the other being two-thirds of the way along , and this
produces a yet higher note. The more nodes , the higher the
frequency. In general , the number of nodes is an integer, and
the nodes are equally spaced.
The corresponding vibrations are standing waves , meaning
waves that move up and down but do not travel along the
string. The size of the up-and-down movement is known as
the amplitude of the wave , and this determines the tone's
loudness . The waves are sinusoidal-shaped like a sine
curve, a repetive wavy line of rather elegant shape that arises
in trigonometry.
In 1 7 1 4 , the English mathematician Brook Taylor pub
lished the fundamental vibrational frequency of a violin
string in terms of its length, tension, and density. In 1 74 6 , the
Frenchman Jean Le Rond d 'Alembert showed that many
vibrations of a violin string are not sinusoidal standing waves.
In fact, he proved that the instantaneous shape of the wave
can be anything you like. In 1 74 8 , in response to d 'Alembert 's
work, the prolific Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler
F R OM V I O L I N S TO V I D E OS 6S
worked out the " wave equation" for a string. In the spirit of
Isaac Newton , this is a differential equation that governs the
rate of change of the shape of the string. In fact it is a " partial
differential equation , " meaning that it involves not only rates
of change relative to time but also rates of change relative to
space-the direction along the string. It expresses in mathe
matical language the idea that the acceleration of each tiny
segment of the string is proportional to the tensile forces act
ing upon that segment ; so it is a consequence of Newton 's law
of motion.
Not only did Euler formulate the wave equation: he solved
it. His solution can be described in words. First, deform the
string into any shape you care to choose-a parabola, say, or a
triangle , or a wiggly and irregular curve of your own devising.
Then imagine that shape propagating along the string toward
the right. Call this a rightward-traveling wave. Then turn the
chosen shape upside down , and imagine it propagating the
other way , to create a leftward-traveling wave. Finally , super
pose these two waveforms . This process leads to all possible
solutions of the wave equation in which the ends of the string
remain fixed.
Almost immediately, Euler got into an argument with
Daniel Bernoulli, whose family originally hailed from
Antwerp but had moved to Germany and then Switzerland to
escape religious persecution . Bernoulli also solved the wave
equation, but by a totally different method. According to
Bernoulli, the most general solution can be represented as a
superposition of infinitely many sinusoidal standing waves.
This apparent disagreement began a century-long controversy,
eventually resolved by declaring both Euler and Bernoulli
right. The reason that they are both right is that every periodi-
•• N A TU R E ' S N UMB E R S
field. For waves that are visible to the human eye , it turns out
that frequency corresponds to color. Strings with different fre
quencies produce different sounds ; visible electromagnetic
waves with different frequencies produce different colors .
When the frequency is outside the visible range, the waves are
not light waves but something else.
What? When Maxwell proposed his equations , nobody
knew. In any case, all this was pure surmise , based on the
assumption that Maxwell 's equations really do apply to the
physical worl d. His equations needed to be tested before these
waves could be accepted as real . Maxwell 's ideas found some
favor in Britain , but they were almost totally ignored abroad
until 1 8 8 6 , when the German physicist Heinrich Hertz gener
ated electromagnetic waves-at the frequency that we now
call radio-and detected them experimentally. The final
episode of the saga was supplied by Guglielmo Marconi , who
successfully carried out the first wireless telegraphy in 1895
and transmitted and received the first transatlantic radio sig
nals in 1 9 0 1 .
The rest, a s they say, i s history. With i t came radar, televi
sion, and videotape.
Of course, this is just a sketch of a lengthy and intricate
interaction between mathematics , physics, engineering, and
finance. No single person can claim credit for the invention of
radio , neither can any single subj ect. It is conceivable that ,
had the mathematicians not already known a lot about the
wave equation , Maxwell or his successors would have
worked out what it implied anyway. But ideas have to attain a
critical mass before they explode, and no innovator has the
time or the imagination to create the tools to make the tools to
make the tools that . . . even if they are intellectual tools. The
F R OM V I O L I N S TO V I D E OS 71
BRO K EN SY MMETRY
71
74 N A TU R E ' S N UMB E R S
OBJ ECT
M I R RO R I MAG E
FIGURE I.
Where is the mirror? Given an object and a mirror image of that
obj ect, choose any point of the object and the corresponding point of
the image. Join them by a line. The mirror must be at right angles to
the midpoint of that line.
' The precise recipe is g iven in the Notes to The Collapse of Chaos, by Jack
Cohen and Ian Stewart.
80 N A T U R E ' S N U MB E R S
ing is that the mathematics does not work this way. Symme
tries break reluctantly. There is so much symmetry lying
around in our mass-produced universe that there is seldom a
good reason to break all of it. So rather a lot survives. Even
those symmetries that do get broken are still present , in a
sense, but now as potential rather than actual form. For exam
ple, when the 2 5 2 units of the adenovirus began to link up,
any one of them could have ended up in a particular corner.
In that sense , they are interchangeable. But only one of them
actually does end up there, and in that sense the symmetry is
broken: they are no longer fully interchangeable. But some of
the symmetry remains , and we see an icosahedron.
In this view, the symmetries we observe in nature are bro
ken traces of the grand, universal symmetries of our mass
produced universe . Poten tially the universe could exist in any
of a huge symmetric system of possible states , but actually it
must select one of them. In so doing , it must trade some of its
actual symmetry for unobservable, potential symmetry. But
some of the actual symmetry may remain, and when it does
we observe a pattern . Most of nature 's symmetric patterns
arise out of some version of this general mechanism.
In a negative sort of way, this rehabilitates Curie's Princi
ple: if we permit tiny asymmetric disturbances , which can
trigger an instability of the fully symmetric state, then our
mathematical system is no longer perfectly symmetric. But
the important point is that the tinest departure from symme
try in the cause can lead to a total loss of symmetry in the
resulting effect-and there are always tiny departures . That
makes Curie's principle useless for the prediction of symme
tries. It is much more informative to model a real system after
one with perfect symmetry , but to remember that such a
B R O K E N S Y MM E T R Y 87
91
94 N A TU R E ' S N UMB E R S
know very little directly about the CPGs that control them , for
reasons I shall shortly explain. A lot of what we do know has
been arrived at by working backward-or forward, if you
like-from mathematical models .
Some animals possess only one gait-only one rhythmic
default pattern for moving their limbs. The elephant , for
example, can only walk. When it wants to move faster, it
ambles-but an amble is just a fast walk, and the patterns of
leg movement are the same. Other animals possess many dif
ferent gaits ; take the horse, for example. At low speeds , horses
walk; at higher speeds , they trot ; and at top speed they gallop.
Some insert yet another type of motion , a canter, between a
trot and a gallop. The differences are fundamental : a trot isn't
just a fast walk but a different kind of movement altogether.
In 1965, the American zoologist Milton Hildebrand
noticed that most gaits possess a degree of symmetry. That i s ,
when a n animal bounds , say , both front legs move together
and both back legs move together; the bounding gait preserves
the animal 's bilateral symmetry. Other symmetries are more
subtle: for example, the left half of a camel may follow the
same sequence of movements as the right, but half a period
out of phase-that is, after a time delay equal to half the
period. So the pace gait has its own characteristic symmetry :
" reflect left and right, and shift the phase by half a period. "
You use exactly this type of symmetry breaking to move your
self around: despite your bilateral symmetry, you don 't move
both legs simultaneously! There 's an obvious advantage to
bipeds in not doing so: if they move both legs slowly at the
same time they fall over.
The seven most common quadrupedal gaits are the trot,
pace , bound, walk, rotary gallop, transverse gallo p , and can-
100 N A TU R E ' S N UMB E R S
ter. In the trot, the legs are in effect linked in diagonal pairs .
First the front left and back right hit the ground together, then
the front right and back left. In the bound, the front legs hit
the ground together, then the back legs . The pace links the
movements fore and aft: the two left legs hit the ground , then
the two right. The walk involves a more complex but equally
rhythmic pattern : front left, back right, front right, back left,
then repeat. In the rotary gallop , the front legs hit the ground
almost together, but with the right (say) very slightly later
than the left; then the back legs hit the ground almost
together, but this time with the left very slightly later than the
right. The transverse gallop is similar, but the sequence is
reversed for the rear legs . The canter is even more curious:
first front left, then back right, then the other two legs simul
taneously. There is also a rarer gait , the pronk, in which all
four legs move simultaneously.
The pronk is uncommon , outside of cartoons, but is some
times seen in young deer. The pace is observed in camels , the
bound in dogs ; cheetahs use the rotary gallop to travel at top
speed. Horses are among the more versatile quadrupeds ,
using the walk, trot , transverse gallop , and canter, depending
on circumstances .
The ability to switch gaits comes from the dynamics of
CPGs. The basic idea behind CPG models is that the rhythms
and the phase relations of animal gaits are determined by the
natural oscillation patterns of relatively simple neural cir
cuits . What might such a circuit look like? Trying to locate a
specific piece of neural circuitry in an animal ' s body is like
searching for a particular grain of sand in a desert: to map out
the nervous system of all but the simplest of animals is well
beyond the capabilities even of today 's science. So we have
T H E R H Y T H M OF L I F E 101
firefly on every leaf, and all the fireflies flashing in p erfect uni
son at the rate o f about three times in two seconds . the tree being
trees at the ends of the line acting in perfect unison with those
An intellect which at any given moment knew all the forces that
animate Nature and the mutual p ositions of the beings that com
prise it, i f this intellect were vast enough to submit its data t o
107
108 N A T U R E ' S N UMB E R S
thing that you can often predict is the shape of the attractor,
which is not altered by the butterfly effect. All the butterfly
effect does is to make the system follow different paths on the
same attractor. In consequence , the general shape of the attrac
tor can often be inferred from experimental observations.
The discovery of chaos has revealed a fundamental misun
derstanding in our views of the relation between rules and the
behavior they produce-between cause and effect. We used to
think that deterministic causes must produce regular effects ,
but now we see that they can produce highly irregular effects
that can easily be mistaken for randomness. We used to think
that simple causes must produce simple effects (implying that
complex effects must have complex causes) , but now we
know that simple causes can produce complex effects . We
realize that knowing the rules is not the same as being able to
predict future behavior.
How does this discrepancy between cause and effect arise?
Why do the same rules sometimes produce obvious patterns
and sometimes produce chaos? The answer is to be found in
every kitchen , in the employment of that simple mechanical
device, an eggbeater. The motion of the two beaters is simple
and predictable, just as Laplace would have expected: each
beater rotates steadily. The motion of the sugar and the egg
white in the bowl , however, is far more complex. The two
ingredients get mixed up-that 's what eggbeaters are for. But
the two rotary beaters don 't get mixed up-you don't have to
disentangle them from each other when you've finished. Why
is the motion of the incipient meringue so different from that
of the beaters? Mixing is a far more complicated, dynamic
process than we tend to think. Imagine trying to predict
where a particular grain of sugar will end up ! As the mixture
110 N A T U R E ' S N UMB E R S
again, all the way along its length, to create the period-four
cycle, and so on. After infinitely many doublings , your finger
is decorated with elastic spaghetti , a chaotic attractor.
This scenario for the creation of chaos is called a period
doubling cascade. In 1 9 7 5 , the physicist Mitchell Feigenbaum
discovered that a particular number, which can be measured
in experiments , is associated with every period-doubling cas
cade. The number is roughly 4 . 6 6 9 , and it ranks alongside 1t
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118 N A T U R E ' S N UMB E R S
FIGURE 4.
The shapes taken by a falling drop of water as it becomes detached,
D ROPS . D Y N AM I C S . A N D D A I S I E S III
spherical drop hanging from its end. Then the thread starts to
narrow , right at the point where it meets the sphere , until it
develops a sharp point. At this stage , the general shape is like
a knitting needle that is j ust touching an orange. Then the
orange falls away from the needle, pulsating slightly as it
falls. But that 's only half the story. Now the sharp end of the
needle begins to round off, and tiny waves travel back up the
needle toward its root , making it look like a string of pearls
that become tinier and tinier. Finally, the hanging thread of
water narrows to a sharp point at the top end , and it, too,
detaches . As it falls, its top end rounds off and a complicated
series of waves travels along it.
I hope you find this as astonishing as I do. I had never
imagined that falling drops of water could be so busy.
These observations make it clear why nobody had previ
ously studied the problem in any great mathematical detail .
I t ' s t o o hard. When the drop detaches , there is a singularity i n
the problem-a place where the mathematics becomes very
nasty. The singularity is the tip of the " needle . " But why is
there a singularity at all? Why does the drop detach in such a
complex manner? In 1 9 9 4 , J. Eggers and T. F . Dupont showed
that the scenario is a consequence of the equations of fluid
motion. They simulated those equations on a computer and
reproduced Peregrine ' s scenario .
I t was a brilliant piece of work. B u t in some respects i t
does not provide a complete answer t o m y question. I t is reas
suring to learn that the equations of fluid flow do predict the
correct scenari o , but that in itself doesn't help me understand
why that scenario happens. There is a big difference between
calculating nature 's numbers and getting your brain around
the answer-as Majikthise and Vroomfondel discovered when
the answer was " Forty-two . "
112 N A T U R E ' S N UMB E R S
FIGURE s.
Successive dots arranged at angles of 1 3 7 . 5 ° to each other along a
tightly wound sp iral (not shown) naturally fall into two families of
loosely wound spirals that are immediately apparent to the eye. Here
there are 8 spirals in one direction and 1 3 in the other-consecutive
Fibonacci numbers .
145
146 N A T U R E ' S N UMB E R S
Chapter I
Chapter 2
Chapter :I
151
152 FURTHER READING
Chapter 4-
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Cohen , Jack, and Ian Stewart, " Let T Equal Tiger . . . , " New
Scien tist (6 November 1 9 9 3 ) : 40-44.
Field, Michael J. , and Martin Golubitsky, Symmetry in Chaos
(Oxford : Oxford University Press , 1 9 9 2 ) .
Stewart, Ian , and Martin Golubitsky, Fearful Symmetry
(Oxford: B lackwell , 1 9 9 2 ) .
Chapter 7
Buck, John , and Elisabeth Buck, " Synchronous Fireflies , " Sci
en tific American (May 1 9 76 ) : 74-8 5 .
Gambaryan, P . P . , How Mammals Run : Anatomical Adapta
tions (New York: Wiley, 1 9 7 4 ) .
Mirollo, Renato, a n d Steven Strogatz , " Synchronization o f
Pulse-Coupled Biological Oscillators , " SIAM Journal of
Applied Mathematics, 5 0 ( 1 9 9 0 ) : 1 645-1 6 6 2 .
FURTHER READING 151
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue
Cohen , Jack, and Ian Stewart, " Our Genes Aren 't Us , " Dis
co ver (April 1 994) : 78-8 3 .
Goodwin , Brian , How the Leopard Changed Its Spots (Lon
don: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1 994).
IN DEX
ISS
156 INDEX
Cyberpunk, 4 7 Dupont, T. F . , 1 3 1
Cycles , biological , 94 Dynamical Systems Collec
Cytoskeleton s , 148-49 tive , 1 1 1