Patterns in the organic world

Introduction

The extant manuscripts contain very few references to ancient scientists who drew inspiration from the organic world in their technical designs. When much of this ancient knowledge was revived during the Renaissance, we see, for example, Leonardo da Vinci does get inspiration from nature. Either this didn't happen, or only rarely, in classical antiquity, or such manuscripts haven't stood the test of time.

Honeycomb

The chapter 'The Skin of Water' from the book 'Arabian Nights' tells of Euclid (300 BC), who taught the Egyptians the geometric arts.

Euclid was inspired by his admiration for the geometric shape of bee cells.

The Greek mathematician Pappus of Alexandria (300 AD) tells of bees who have only three choices for creating identical, gapless cells with perfect polygonal cross-sections: squares, triangles, and hexagons.

 

Pappus wrote: 'Of these, the bees wisely chose the structure with the most corners, because it could hold more honey than the other two.'

 

'So,' Pappus concluded, 'bees have a certain capacity of geometric forethought'.

Piston pump

Zuigerpomp door Philo

Zuigerpomp door Hero

In his manuscript, Philon (2nd century BC) describes a piston pump designed by Ctesibius (3rd century BC). When Hero (1st century AD) describes the same pump system approximately 300 years later, we see several technical improvements, including:

  1. The pump's pistons are now located in a single reservoir, instead of two separate reservoirs.
  2. The two pistons use a common tube to pump the water to the elevated tank.

 

The initial design described by Philo resembles two separate pumps with one cylinder each, rather than a single pump with two cylinders.

 

One possible explanation could be that Ctesibius based his design on the pump system of a mammalian heart. The two halves of this heart are indeed separate. And the two halves of the heart also pump blood into separate blood vessels (aorta and pulmonary artery) to their respective circulations.

 

However, a common outflow tube makes more sense for a piston pump. There is no archaeological evidence Ctesibius used a mammalian heart as inspiration for the design for his pump invention.

Symmetry

Various types of symmetry occur in nature.

 

Our human body applies a two-sided symmetry, unless an asymmetrical function applies (e.g., our heart).

 

The sponge in the picture (see the cross-section) follows a three-sided symmetry: the same structural pattern is applied three times around a central axis.

 

In the starfish, the structural plan of a leg is repeated five times, resulting in a five-sided symmetry.

Spirals

Many living organisms repeat structures of themselves in a spiral pattern: the seeds of a sunflower are arranged in a spiral pattern, the shape of many shells, the arrangement of seeds in pine cones, the horns of a goat, ...

Cross-section of a snail shell.

Unlike the shell of the Nautilus, the spiral shape of the fossilized chambers of this extinct ammonite species does not conform to the golden ratio.