The Grey Labyrinth is a collection of puzzles, riddles, mind games, paradoxes and other intellectually challenging diversions. Related topics: puzzle games, logic puzzles, lateral thinking puzzles, philosophy, mind benders, brain teasers, word problems, conundrums, 3d puzzles, spatial reasoning, intelligence tests, mathematical diversions, paradoxes, physics problems, reasoning, math, science.

winterHLepsilon · Daedalian Member

I'm a girl of 12 and my dream is to become a biologist. At the ame time, I enjoy mathematics. Mathematics is everywhere in biology. Do you think so?

Take the Fibonacci numbers for example. You can find the numbers in petals and leaves of various plants, such as daisies. The sunflower arranges its seeds in such a beautiful, mathematical way (a golden angle of 137.5 degrees) that it can produce the most seeds.No waste of space! But if theangle at which the seeds are arranged is a little different, then......
Bees are born architects. Their beehives are such excellent work that not even humans can race aginst their skills.

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*Hypotenuse Leg*
HL--^H^e^L^en
A girl from Guangzhou, China, Asia

[This message has been edited by winterHLepsilon (edited 05-27-2004 08:26 AM).]

Lepton · 1:41+ Arse Scratcher

When i was 12, I wanted to be an astronomer or astrophysicist (sorry Borodog), as long as I didn't have to learn any stupid math stuff.

Agamemnon · Daedalian Member

Bees are good I agree, but what use are wasps?

Swarm of Wasps · Daedalian Member

*stings Agamemnon*

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To sting is the thing.

i_h8_evil_stuff · Daedalian Member

Go watch the movie p. It's an excellent movie about math in life.

Link to movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/

Vinny · Promiscuous enough

yes yes, tell her the bit where he's poking his brain with a pencil in the subway.

So much beauty *sniff*

extropalopakettle · No offense, but....

If you're interested in math in biology, here are a few avenues to explore:

1) Fractals and fractal geometry.
2) The Mandelbrot set - a particular fractal generated by a simple math formula, which has an incredible structure that just looks very organic. Check out this thread: http://www.greylabyrinth.com/Forums/Forum7/HTML/005281.html ... and download a copy of Ultra Fractal 3 ... fun to play with.
3) Neural networks. How does the brain work? The theory behind neural networks is very math heavy.
4) Artificial Life - there are a lot of researchers doing work on computer simulated evolution of simulated life forms. This can overlap with neural networks (evolving them).
5) Cellular automata, especially John Conway's "Game of Life". You can download a nice program to play with here: http://psoup.math.wisc.edu/Life32.html