Do Plants Know Math? : Unwinding the Story of Plant Spirals, from Leonardo da Vinci to Now

Description

A breathtakingly illustrated look at botanical spirals and the scientists who puzzled over themCharles Darwin was driven to distraction by plant spirals, growing so exasperated that he once begged a friend to explain the mystery "if you wish to save me from a miserable death." The legendary naturalist was hardly alone in feeling tormented by these patterns. Plant spirals captured the gaze of Leonardo da Vinci and became Alan Turing's final obsession. This book tells the stories of the physicists, mathematicians, and biologists who found themselves magnetically drawn to Fibonacci spirals in plants, seeking an answer to why these beautiful and seductive patterns occur in botanical forms as diverse as pine cones, cabbages, and sunflowers.Do Plants Know Math? takes you down through the centuries to explore how great minds have been captivated and mystified by Fibonacci patterns in nature. It presents a powerful new geometrical solution, little known outside of...