Geometry in the Sea

Hello my fellow readers. I hope you are doing great. Today we are talking about geometry in the Sea. I am quite a passionate of the Sea world and I was watching the trailer of The Little Mermaid the other day and I saw quite some things related to geometry. So, this means I am talking about geometry in the Sea. Get comfortable and enjoy!

It is estimated that there are around 500,000 species in the ocean, many of them still undiscovered. However, within this great diversity, there are some animals that are particularly striking, due to the particularity of their physical appearance. The marine is based on hyperbolic geometry. For those of you who don't know it, it is based on negative curves (you can better see it in the following image).

Let me talk to you about some places in which I saw geometry in the Sea world.

The Nautilus is a cephalopod, a close relative of octopus and squid, whose fossil record indicates that it has hardly evolved at all over the last 500 million years. The curious geometry of this animal has long attracted the attention of biologists and mathematicians. There has even been considerable speculation about its relationship to the so-called 'golden or divine' ratio (a ratio which, when present in geometric figures, gives them a certain aesthetic value and would dictate the arrangement of petals on flowers, the number of spirals on a pineapple and even the size of credit cards).

It is not only this type of animal that can be related to geometry. We also see clear geometric motifs in coral reefs. 

The reef does not only correspond to an animal, but to a structure formed by the calcium carbonate secreted by corals. It is an ever-present feature in brochures advertising tropical beaches. It is such a complex concept that it has only been able to be represented using the crochet technique. It was two sisters, Margaret Wertheim and Christine Wertheim, who made such a discovery in 2005. What the sisters were doing was trying to model hyperbolic space, a mind-boggling model of geometry that took mathematicians themselves centuries to conceptualise and accept, as it creates configurations that defy the theorems discovered by Euclid 2,000 years ago. Let me show you some pics of what I am talking about.

Impressive, right? 

In addition, geometry can also be seen in the patterns of the animals that sail the seas of our planet. Let's take a look at some examples.

(Its spots)

(Its shape and the white-like decorations of its body)

(The ciruclar suction cups)

(The lines on its chin)

(Its beautiful tail)

I could stare at these images all day long! I am such a fan!

As a teacher, I will always try to encourage in my students, among other things, the curiosity to know more. I will try to bring learning and all my explanations to their immediate context as I believe that, for a student who is passionate about the marine world, learning mathematics from this perspective (i.e. relating it to the marine world) is very beneficial. Not only will they learn more quickly and efficiently, but they will also have fun while doing it. 

I leave for you here two videos that caught my attention about the mathematics and geometry at sea!

Here are the links: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcod-rGy_vU&ab_channel=OxfordMathematics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfRf1NizPmo&ab_channel=PLOSMedia 

That's all for today. I hope you liked it a lot and don't forget that you can leave in comments what you think about what you have read. As always, it has been a pleasure.

See you soon!