Patterns in Nature: Why the Natural World Looks the Way It Does

Excellent explanations matched with fascinating images. I bought this book with the expectation that many natural patterns would be revealed. The book exceeded expectations. I’m a retired technical writer with a growing digital photography hobby. Having literally sailed around the world in a lengthy military career I am fascinated by the shapes and patterns in nature. In my other career, as a conveyor of facts and technical explanations, I was pleased with the author’s scientific and mathematical details. The images are worth the book’s cost. The theory and science are “added value”. If you’re a photographer of any genre, especially one who appreciates closeup or macro images, you will loiter over many beautiful images in this book. The photography is superb. The history of scientific efforts to explain nature’s patterns is enlightening.

wow very cool interesting book there isn't much books about patterns in nature subject! The photos are beautiful! I bought this book for my 3rd grader. I think this book is suitable for ages 9 and up. i highly recommend this book!

If you know Phillip ball’s writing, you know he is an expert at explaining difficult subjects in an accessible way. This book on the surface looks suspiciously similar to another of his books, “the self-made tapestry: pattern formation in nature.” But whereas that book is replete with interesting descriptions of self-organizing natural phenomenon, supplemented with intuitive graphs and charts, this book is mostly photos. Pretty photos, sure, but just photos nonetheless. Very much a coffee table book.

Well worth the read as it is an excellent compilation of patterns and forms with a worthy argument as to how they may be created, that allows for diversity as well as complementarity. Nothing simplistic and plenty left to wonder about.

This is a beautiful AND informative book & am very pleased to have it in my library. The photography is GREAT, very professional, and the text is very readable and fascinating!!

I got this book from the library to see if I wanted to purchase it. After reading through it, my decision is not to purchase it. While the photos in the book are generally of high quality, and nicely organized into the different types of patterns that occur in nature, the explanations of how such patterns form are pretty basic, and the vast majority of the photos can be easily found on the internet, from Shutterstock or Getty Images. As a nature photographer, I was hoping it would be for more original and new photographs, with explanations of how each was taken. Typically in a book like this, there is an appendix with photo credits organized by page. In this book, though, the photo credits are listed by the name or organization that took the photo. So if you want to know where a specific photo came from, you have to read through the entire list of photo credits until you find the one you want.

Beautiful photos and detailed explanations of how patterns occur in nature. Very interesting to see which things are considered fractals. Also, wonderful to find out that a pineapple and a pinecone have something in common besides starting with a P.

Gave it to a friend who is a mathematician and she loves it