Scientists mapping the human body at the cellular level keep running into the same surprise: beneath the apparent chaos of tissues and organs, there is a hidden order that looks a lot like pure ...

Remember the graph paper you used at school, the kind that’s covered with tiny squares? It’s the perfect illustration of what mathematicians call a “periodic tiling of space”, with shapes covering an ...

Why do humans love to look at patterns? I can only guess, but I’ve written a whole book about new mathematical ways to make them. In Creating Symmetry, The Artful Mathematics of Wallpaper Patterns, I ...

A Japanese plant species with a peculiar leaf pattern recently revealed unexpected insight into how almost all plants control their leaf arrangement. Leaves can be enjoyed for their shade, autumn ...