Science seeks to explain human behavior through physical methods, trying to find why that action caused a reaction in human activity or human understanding. In culture you involve the activities and experience of humans, and how they relate with experiences either material or symbolically . Here is were we met Internet a big universe where science meets culture, Phylotaxis is a project developed for Seed Magazine by Jonathan Harrys.
The structure is derived from Fibonacci Sequence related to the Golden Ratio (daamn when i did research about it i remembered those days in 6th grade, i believe). WHAAAAT? well believe me it wasn't easy for me to go back to Math, I will illustrate it:
Do you remember any diagram like that? Well i did, it was a big pyramid full of numbers making sequences 1+1+3+5+8+13+21.....(sequences). But with plants its even better there is where we get to the whole understanding of Phylotaxis.
Back view:
The 3 sepals that protected the bud are outermost, then 5 outer green petals followed by an inner layer of 5 more paler green petals.
Front view:
The two sets of 5 green petals are outermost, with an array of purple-and-white stamens (how many?);in the centre are 5 greenish stamens (T-shaped) and uppermost in the centre are 3 deep brown carpels and style branches)
Tha plant itself form a sequence with a ratio. Also seen in the seed heads of a plant, check this out.
You can see that the orange "petals" seem to form spirals curving both to the left and to the right. At the edge of the picture, if you count those spiralling to the right as you go outwards, there are 55 spirals. A little further towards the centre and you can count 34 spirals. How many spirals go the other way at these places? You will see that the pair of numbers (counting spirals in curing left and curving right) are neighbours in the Fibonacci series. all the seeds being the same size, no crowding in the centre and not too sparse at the edges.
The spirals are patterns that the eye sees, "curvier" spirals appearing near the centre, flatter spirals (and more of them) appearing the farther out we go.
This is how we can relate Science with Culture, the creation of knowledge from changes of patterns. Patterns that could be in human activity. So Phylotaxis represents the balance between science and culture, evolving the randomness of culture and the rational thinking of science. With out the randomness of culture and the rational thinking of science this world would be chaos.
Philotaxis represents the changes in the world of news within science and humans. A computer changing every few hours by online sources or blogs in the world of science, creating it's own identity beyond human control.
The different patterns and changes happening in the world not only of science, it lead us to different ways; a way which is composing the world identity; where we are all connected no matter in which direction; we are always in the same node.
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You can visit the website www.phylotaxis.com, if you want more information and also to check more about Fibonacci Sequence or Golden Ratio visit http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibnat.html#golden.
For more work of Jonathan Harris check www.number27.org
