FINGERPRINTS of the Cosmos - Reg Morrison

FINGERPRINTSof the Cosmos© Reg Morrisonregm@optusnet.com.au

FINGERPRINTS OF THE COSMOS‘The cosmosspeaks to usin patterns’Heraclitus, 2,500 BP.Chaotic entropy within a soap film.Our universe is a thermodynamic system and its patterns of energy flow are inherentlychaotic and fractal.* Everything that we see around us expresses this cosmic characteristicin every aspect of its existence, regardless of scale. Our brains respond instinctivelyto these fractal patterns and our eyes trace over them with pleasure, essentially becausethey are embedded in every fibre of our being. In them, we recognise ourselves.*CHAOS THEORY, as propounded by Edward Lorenz in 1963.

Entropy’s FingerprintsMicro-tubules,within a cell.Typhoon, NASA satellite imageWhirlpool Galaxy (Hubble image, NASA)Cosmic entropy takes many forms, but it is most flamboyantly displayed in Earth’s weather systems and cloudpatterns. The key characteristic of entropy is the repetition of its basic structures at all scales of magnitudefrom the cosmic to the micro-cosmic, from galaxies to intra-cellular structures. In short, it is FRACTAL.

HYDROGEN IN ACTIONWaterfall, Milford Sound, NZ.Solar ‘Moss’, precursor to a hydrogen-fuelled storm on the Sun (NASA image).‘Flowstone’, shaped by hydrogen’s oxide, water. NZ.

Entropy’s FingerprintsIn order there is Chaos:in Chaos there is order.Computer-generated fractals. (Peter F. Allport)Fractal growth in a foliose lichen(with reproductive spore cups),Cradle Mountain, Tasmania.

ENTROPY: CHAOTIC AND FRACTALThe chaotically fractalnature of entropy typifiesall cosmic structures, bothanimate and inanimate.When prolonged entropyunveils more durablestructures beneath thesurface, these structurestoo, frequently display astriking similarity.Cow spine, Strzelecki Desert, SA.Fijords and eroded folds in north-western Iceland. (NASA satellite image)

Entropy: Chaotic and FractalThe cosmos leaves its clearest imprints on our planet in the form of impact scars suchas Gosse Bluff in central Australia. This crater-like structure is the eroded remains ofa deep crustal bruise left by the impact of a giant meteorite some 142 million yearsago. Such impacts are accurately replicated every time a raindrop hits a body of water.Gosse Bluff represents the base of the rebound splash shown in the final frameof the series at right. The up-turned collar of hard marine sandstone that now formsthe walls of the amphitheatre originally lay more than two kilometres underground.The modern stucture has been unearthed by massive erosion.Aerial: Gosse Bluff, Central Australia (NT).

Entropy: Chaotic and FractalEROSION IS FRACTALRIGHT: This scalloped escarpmentis the erodededge of a massive anticlinalfold in central Australia. Itoriginally formed the bedof a sea corridor bisectingthe continent more than600 million years ago.Aboriginal legends namethis fractally scalloped escarpmentthe ‘place of theDancing Women’.Fluvio-glacial strata, Poole Range, WA.‘Dancing Women’, western MacDonnell Ranges, NT.LEFT: Looking like the fossilised scales of a gigantic reptile thisthick sheet of unlayered sediment was dumped by a torrentof meltwater pouring from beneath a glacier in the ice-cappedsouthern Kimberleys some 270 million years ago.

Entropy: Chaotic and FractalTHE PRODUCTS OF EROSION ARE FRACTALIlmenite and rutile sand, Fraser Is. QLD.Sand dunes on Mars (NASA image)Dry sand weeps down damp dune-face, Wilson’s Prom. VIC.

Entropy: Chaotic and FractalAerial: L. Lefroy, WA.The fractal patterns that characterise theeroded landscapes of Australia’s arid zone areechoed in the petroglyphs (LEFT) that werechipped into the rocks by the land’s first humancolonists more than 20,000 years ago.Rock engraving, Pilbara, WA.Strzelecki Desert, SA.

LIFE TOO, IS FRACTALLife is explicitly fractal, right down to its molecular base.Genetic material replicates continuously, enabling speciesto grow and reproduce with astonishing fidelity.RIGHT: This is the growth pattern of colonial bacteria.(Photo: Eshel Ben-Jacob, Tel Aviv University, Israel.)LEFT: A computer generatedfractal pattern.(Photo: Peter F. Allport.)BELOW: Seen from the air,coral reefs typify the chaoticand fractal nature of all life.Aerial: Great Barrier Reef, QLD, Australia.Colonial bacterium Paenibacillus dendritiformis.

Life is FractalRIGHT: Even life’s oldest tangible traces are fractal. Buriedand fossilised during a process of branching, theselayered deposits were left along an Australian shorelinealmost 3.5 billion years ago by colonies of photosyntheticmarine bacteria.BELOW & BOTTOM RIGHT: The stromatolites that line theshores of Shark Bay on Australia’s west coast are beingbuilt by descendants of the bacteria that built the fossil.Fossil stromatolites, Pilbara, WA.‘Live’ stromatolites, at high tide, Shark Bay, WA.‘Live’ stromatolites at dawn, low tide, Shark Bay, WA.

Life is FractalRIGHT: These patternswere created by a networkof vascular bundlesthat formed the trunkof a banksia tree growingbeside an estuary insouth-eastern Australia.They distributed waterand nutrient throughoutthe tree in the years beforeit died and becamedriftwood.Driftwood, Banksia sp., south-eastern Australia.Skeleton of a sea urchin (Echinometra mathaei), Australia.LEFT: The orderly array of ball joints that once attacheda forest of spines to the skeleton of an echinodermepitomises the fractal nature of all organic deposition,and thereby, of all metabolism and growth.

Life is FractalLife is FractalTadpoles in eggmass of Brown-striped frog, Sydney.Complex ‘hand’ weapon of a Net-Casting spider, Sydney.Wings of a phasmid (leaf-insect), Sydney.

Life is FractalA peacock’s tail.Sori on fern frond (Cyrtomium falcatum).Wing feathers of a Great Argus pheasant (Argusianus argus).

Life is FractalBones are the internal deposits of calcified ‘waste’ that accumulatein the bodies of vertibrates when nutrient is extracted from food.Such deposition, like that of erosion sediment, is inherently chaoticand fractal, and occasionally rippled like beach sand (RIGHT).Bone deposit in a fish head.Skeleton of a Kangaroo, Strzelecki Desert, SA.

Life is FractalThe patterns of energy flow that determinethe pigmentation in a tiger’s fur are fractallyrelated to those that determine the flow ofspring-water over black ilmenite and rutilesands on the beaches of Fraser Island andCooloola in south-eastern QLD. Such powerfulflows of kinetic energy are inherentlyChaotic, fractal and sigmoidal …

SIGMOIDSA ‘sigmoid’ is so called because it resemblesthe ‘S’ shape of the Greek letter ‘sigma’.BELOW: Sigmoidal disturbances on the surfaceof the Sun commonly preceed the giganticeruptions of solar energy known as sunspots.RIGHT: The uncurling of a new fern frond similarlyheralds an eruption of metabolic energyfrom within the body of the fern.A solar ‘Sigmoid’ (Yang Liu, University of Tokyo).King fern (Angiopteris evecta), Fraser Island, QLD.

Tree-fern fronds (Cyathea sp.) uncurling on a digital background by S. Geier (http://www.sgeier.net/fractals/indexe.php)

BRANCHING SIGMOIDSA common hallmark of Earthly entropy appearsin the dendritic (branching) patternsthat characterise powerful energy flows inenvironments of grossly different densityand texture. The energy flows themselvesare invariably expressed in sigmoidal curves.Similarly dendritic patterns characterisesevery nerve, blood and lymph system in thehuman body.Aerial: Tidal drainage, Talbot Bay, Kimberley, WA.Nullarbor Plain, WA.

SigmoidsDead mulga woodland, Finke, NT.Fungal hyphae beneath Eucalyptus bark.Tree-like tentacles of a holothurian, Great Barrier Reef, QLD.

SigmoidsPerhaps the most elegant example ofsigmoidal growth in the plant world isdisplayed by the sensuously muscularGimlet Gum (Eucalyptus salubris), whichis endemic to the Kalgoorlie-Norsemanregion of Western Australia.

THE HUMAN FACE OF COSMIC ENTROPYOf fractals, sigmoids, and our genetic attraction to them.Skull: Homo habilis (KNM-ER 1470), Africa.Brain: Homo sapiens (not to scale).

As biological extensions of the Earth’s crust, we too, are cogs inthe cosmic machinery of entropy, so we are shaped and driven bythe same chaotic and fractal patterns of energy flow that orchestratethe rest of the universe. Since we require energy to live, weare inevitably intrigued by its sources. Consequently, the shapethat is most significant for us is the sigmoidal curve—a curve thatcommonly flows from an energy source, or into an energy sink.Bathurst Island, NT.

Seeking the sigmoidSince smooth sigmoidal curves invariably signify powerful flows ofkinetic energy, they coincide with nourishment and growth and areinherently attractive to human genes.Our devotion to thesigmoid begins veryearly … and lasts alifetime!Dani, Sydney.

Seeking the sigmoidAs far as adults are concerned thesigmoid is the source of all physicalbeauty. It resides in lips, eyes,ears, hair, feet, hands, torso andlimbs.And wherever suchcurves appear in sexually maturebodies they not only signify healthand vitality, they double as theicons of reproductive viability—they are ‘sexy’.

Seeking the sigmoidSydneySydneyRuth, Perth

Seeking the sigmoidSylvia, Perth.Trevor, Perth

Seeking the sigmoidAnd when we try to ornamentour sigmoidal bodies in orderto enhance our tribal statusand reproductive viability, ourgenes instruct us to ‘choose’spiral, circular and sigmoidaldecorations.Kintore, NT.Reveller, Sydney.

Seeking the sigmoid‘Butterfly’, Perth.Maree, Perth.

THE HUMAN FACE OF CHAOTIC ENTROPYAs entropy begins to take its toll, however,the smooth sigmoidal curves of youth shrivelinto leathery folds, the skin becomes a chaoticmoonscape of creases, craters and scars, andthe skeletal framework begins to show.Linda, Perth.A farmer, WA.

The human face of entropyThe process of chaoticentropy offers one peculiaradvantage to ourspecies. The 42 musclesin the human face areable to assemble some7,000 different expressions,and the lines thataccumulate about theageing face, allow it toconvey a range of unspokencommunication thatextends far beyond thecapabilities of youth.Anzac Day, Sydney.

The human face of entropyAnnie, Wilcannia.

Born of the ash of burnt-out stars, and shaped and driven as we are by the molecular code of DNA,we are intimately related to all life, to the sea that nurtured it,and to the rocks that gave it refuge.Moonlight on Bunker Bay, WA.END

CHAOTIC FRACTALSAll thermodynamic entropy is inherently chaotic and fractal and is determined byrepetitive feedback (iteration) within kinetic energy gradients.Fractal patterns have been recognised as a primary characteristic of the naturalworld for at least 2,500 years (see Heraclitus quote, p.2). Nevertheless, such patternswere not explored in much detail until the early 1960’s when, with the aid ofcomputers, meteorologist Edward Lorenz began to analyse the iterative and fractalnature of weather patterns. He presented his research in 1963 in a short, little-notedpaper entitled “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado inTexas?”. Lorenz’ proposition, which later became widely acclaimed as Chaos theory,has also become known as the Butterfly Effect.Extensive research has since revealed chaotic ‘order’ in such diverse phenomenaas the folds in filo pastry, the dripping of taps and the beating of hearts. (Preciselyregular heartbeats signal a life-threatening lack of bodily feedback: chaotic heartbeats,though slightly irregular, tend to be synonymous with good health.)For those seeking more information on chaos and fractals:http://www.imho.com/grae/chaos/chaos.htmlhttp://math.rice.edu/~lanius/frac/http://images.google.com/images?q=mandelbrot&hl=enhttp://www.peterallport.com/

Biographical noteOriginally a West Australian newspaperman, Reg Morrisonis now a Sydney-based writer-photographer who, for thepast 25 years, has specialised in environmental and evolutionarymatters.His latest book, Australia’s Four-Billion-Year Diary,compresses the evolution of the continent, its plants andanimals, into twelve ‘monthly’ episodes, and is essentiallydesigned for High School use. (Sainty & Associates, 2005)Reg’s other recent book, published in 2003 by NewHolland, Sydney, under the title Plague Species: Isit in our Genes?, summarises the massive impactthat humans have had on the biosphere, and exploresthe evolutionary origins of the behaviour thatproduced this impact. It was originally published in1999 by Cornell University Press, New York, underthe title The Spirit in the Gene.Other books by Reg Morrison:Australia, Land Beyond Time, New Holland Publishers, 2002(original title: The Voyage of the Great Southern Ark, 1988).The Great Australian Wilderness, Phillip Mathews Publishers, 1993.Australian’s Exposed, Paul Hamlyn, Sydney, 1973.

The images in this collection are subject to the author’s copyright unlessotherwise indicated.Reproduction rights and photographic prints may be obtained via emailapplication to:regm@optusnet.com.auWebsite: www.regmorrison.id.au