Why does nature create patterns? – the Conversation

Giants Causeway, Northern Ireland (by llee_wu CC BY-ND 2.0 DEED via Flickr).

The reason patterns often appear in nature is simple: The same basic physical or chemical processes occur in many patterned substances and organisms as they form. Whether in plants and animals or rocks, foams and ice crystals, the intricate patterns that happen in nature come down to what’s happening at the level of atoms and molecules…