Patterns in Nature, editorial design project by our 2nd-year student Ellen Andersin.

The most important factor to
name is that these spirals are
different than the spiral you get
when you’re rolling up the garden
hose. In that case, the width of the
coils are the same in every turn. This
spiral is called an Archimedean spiral and 3
like Archemedes described it; usually comes from
rolling up a long or flat object with a constant width.
The natural snail shell (5) spiral becomes larger for
every turn in a specific, logarithmic way, since its
mathematical equation involves logarithms. What
makes this spiral remarkable then? The shape remains
the same no matter how small or big it is. As the
spiral rotates into its center, it only gets narrower
and narrower and the curvature gets tighter and
tighter. The spiral knows no limits; it can go on curling
inward or outward forever and remain unchanged.
The difference with the Archemedean spiral can
be explained with the impossibility of coiling the
garden hose tighter than its width.
It’s not just molluscs that feature
the logarithmic spiral (1), so do plants
like ferns (4), animal horns and claws,
though these might not even complete a
full turn. Spiral galaxies (2) such as the Milky
Way often have logarithmic shapes, as well as
cyclones and hurricanes. The head of a sunflower (3) is
made up of two spirals rotating in opposite directions.
The Fibonacci Sequence is very common in radially
symmetrical plants. If you count the pattern of seeds
in a sunflower, for instance, the number is equal to the
Fibonacci Sequence. The leaflets of pine cones have the
same structure as the sunflower, and the Romanesco
broccoli’s florets as well. Their arrangement of leaf
motion, or phyllotaxis, is based on the same structure,
the Fibonacci sequence. The structure allows the
plant to constantly grow but stay secure and strong.
The spiral shape maximizes their sun and rainwater
intake, while taking up the least amount of space.
4 5
9 Spirals