高级检索

美丽是可以表述的——描述花卉形态的数理方程

Beauty is not beyond description——a physico-mathematical equation to describe flower morphology

  • 摘要: 生命的构造法则除了众所周知的基因法则外,还有许多已知和未知的数学物理法则,尤其是植物的宏观形态.研究表明,植物如花卉的形态及叶片的排列方式符合严格的数学法则,而隐藏其后的物理法则尚有待于人们的进一步探索.文章首先介绍了自然界美丽如雪花、植物花卉及叶序中展示的数学现象,简要回顾了对这些现象的探索过程,尤其是叶序中的菲波那契数现象.其后介绍了基于细胞和器官层次上植物生长的二维连续流体模型,以及以渗透压为生长驱动力、描述植物形态发生的二阶微分方程的推导和在对称性破缺条件下稳态解的给出.讨论了植物花卉的共进化演化模式,在以毕达哥拉斯数为共进化模式的限制条件下,得出了植物在进化过程中以花基数3,4,5 为最可几布居数,并且指出了花卉形态进化过程出现的毕达哥拉斯数与植物叶序中出现的斐波纳契数之间本质上的区别.

     

    Abstract: Besides the well-known rule of genes, there are still many known or unknown rules for the structure of living organisms. It has been shown that the morphology of flowers and the arrangement of leaves known as phyllotaxis well fit certain rigorous mathematical rules, while the corresponding underlying physics remains to be explored. This paper begins with a brief introduction to the beautiful morphology of nature, such as snow flakes, flowers and phyllotaxis which well demonstrate bio-mathematical phenomena. This is followed by a brief historical perspective of the discovery of the above phenomena, especially the Fibonacci numbers appearing in phyllotaxis. To describe plant growth a second order differential equation is then derived, based on a continuous fluid model at the cellular level which regards osmotic pressure as the main driving force for growth, and the steady-state solution under the boundary condition of symmetry breaking is obtained. The co-evolution model is discussed for the flower pattern, and under the condition that the Pythagorean numbers dominate the selection in the evolution, it can be concluded that the basic Pythagorean numbers 3,4 and 5 are the mostly populated numbers for the branching numbers of flowers. The inherent difference between the Fibonacci numbers for phyllotaxis and the Pythagorean numbers in flower evolution is addressed.

     

/

返回文章
返回