Kids need frequent opportunities to encounter numbers, quantities, shapes, patterns, measurement and spatial relationships.
Articles on Patterns
Displaying 1 - 20 of 27 articles
On your mental number line, are the numbers smaller on the left or on the right? Two comparative cognition researchers explain how culture may influence the orientation – but also may not.
Reading and writing poetry, which is anchored in patterns of words, images, sounds and forms, is particularly well suited for people with autism.
A well-known book or episode can provide comfort in a world full of strange new things.
What mathematicians call ‘disordered collections’ can help engineers explore real-world worst-case scenarios. The simple card game Set illustrates how to predict internet and electrical grid failures.
Understanding how the intricate spots and stripes, or Turing patterns, of many animals form can help scientists mimic those processes in the lab.
Nature begins forming patterns at the molecular level – and sometimes they grow to enormous sizes.
Architect Christopher Alexander’s work will continue to be important not only for designing buildings but also in light of contemporary debates about how data always comes from specific settings.
Numerology ties in with how our brains work, but that doesn’t mean its claims make sense.
As our cities get hotter, rebuilding whole suburbs better suited to the heat is not an option. Instead, we can draw from the best examples of how to adapt neighbourhoods and behaviours.
We wanted to find out which biological phenomena are crucial for pattern formation and which are just incidental. These sorts of questions can be answered with mathematical modelling.
Given that we know humans moved across these landscapes, we wondered whether there might also be evidence of other forms of human activity on these surfaces of sand.
On top of teaching them how to recognize numbers and count to 10, make sure they’re playing with puzzles.
What do earthquakes, wealthy Italian families and your circulatory system have in common? Scientists use fractals, self-similarity and power laws to translate from local to global scales.
Coach students to analyze the credibility of sources, but teaching them how genre and experiential patterns can be manipulated is also relevant.
Zebrafish are known for their black and gold stripes, but researchers are still figuring out how pigment cells interact to form these patterns.
A mathematician has joined the dots between Alan Turing and chasing cells to find out how skin patterns are formed.
Mathematics and art are generally viewed as very different. But a trip through history – from an Islamic palace to Pollock’s paintings – proves the parallels between the two can be uncanny.
Fractals are patterns that repeat at increasingly fine magnifications. They turn up in the natural world and in artists’ work. Research suggests they contribute to making something aesthetically appealing.
Welcome to the world of cloths and materials that change depending on your mood.
Top contributors
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Associate Professor of Psychology, Vanderbilt University
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Professor and Director of Doherty Epidemiology, The University of Melbourne
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Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, Cardiff University
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Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Purdue University
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Research Fellow Applied Mathematics, University of Leeds
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Associate Professor of Mathematics, Williams College
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Research Fellow, Mathematical Biology and Physiology, The University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor of Mathematics, Western New England University
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Professor in Mathematical Biology, The University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor of Mathematics, Santa Clara University
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Ruth Coulter Heede Professor of Art History, Case Western Reserve University
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Director of the Materials Science Institute and Professor of Physics, University of Oregon
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Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of South Carolina
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Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
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Senior Research Professor, Heriot-Watt University