Spirals and Vortices: In Culture, Nature, and Science

Description

This richly illustrated book explores the fascinating and ubiquitous occurrence of spirals and vortices in human culture and in nature. Spiral forms have been used as elements in the arts for thousands of years, whereas their role in nature and science – from DNA and sea shells to galaxies – is still a topic of investigation in numerous fields. Following an introduction to the cultural history of spiral forms, the book presents contributions from leading experts, who describe the origins, mechanisms and dynamics of spirals and vortices in their special fields. As a whole the book provides a valuable source of information, while also taking the reader on an aesthetic and scientific journey through the world of spiral forms. Front Matter ....Pages i-xvi Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 Cultural History (Kinko Tsuji, Stefan C. Müller)....Pages 3-29 Appearance in Nature (Stefan C. Müller, Kinko Tsuji)....Pages 31-66 The Arts and Beyond (Kinko Tsuji, Stefan C. Müller)....Pages 67-87 Front Matter ....Pages 89-89 Spirals, Their Types and Peculiarities (Andrey Polezhaev)....Pages 91-112 Acoustic Spirals: Analysis of Bach’s Prelude in C Major (Kinko Tsuji)....Pages 113-125 Front Matter ....Pages 127-127 Liesegang Rings, Spirals and Helices (Sabine Dietrich)....Pages 129-140 Generation of Spirals in Excitable Media (Stefan C. Müller)....Pages 141-155 Chemical Oscillations and Spiral Waves (Patricia Pfeiffer)....Pages 157-173 Shedding Light on Chaos - Controlling Surface Reactions (Harm H. Rotermund)....Pages 175-189 Front Matter ....Pages 191-191 Spiral Waves of the Chemo-Attractant cAMP Organise Multicellular Development in the Social AmoebaeDictyostelium discoideum (Cornelis J. Weijer)....Pages 193-207 Spiral Waves in the Heart (Alexander V. Panfilov)....Pages 209-215 Patterns and Humans (Niklas Manz, Flavio H. Fenton)....Pages 217-224 Yet More Spirals (Thomas Mair, Markus A. Dahlem, Stefan C. Müller)....Pages 225-235 Front Matter ....Pages 237-237 Reaction-Diffusion Patterns and Waves: From Chemical Reactions to Cardiac Arrhythmias (Markus Bär)....Pages 239-251 A Lattice-Gas Cellular Automaton Model for Discrete Excitable Media (Simon Syga, Josué M. Nava-Sedeño, Lutz Brusch, Andreas Deutsch)....Pages 253-264 Kinematics of Spiral Waves in Excitable Media (Vladimir S. Zykov)....Pages 265-276 Back Matter ....Pages 277-298