Patterns

Season 05

Episode 18

Duration 23:20

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Look at a honeycomb, a spider web or a snowflake and you see the same idea over and over: repetition. In this episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy, Bill shows how patterns in nature and in our own designs help us predict, duplicate and navigate the world around us.

In this episode you will discover:

What makes something a pattern and why we look for them
How animals use camouflage to hide, hunt or confuse predators
Why spirals like the nautilus shell and DNA are so efficient
What the Fibonacci sequence is and where it shows up in plants
How fractals in ferns and broccoli show self-similarity
How builders use patterns to make structures stronger

Repetition, prediction, understanding

Bill runs his repeating roller through a giant ink pad to print the same sun, wave and moon over and over across a wall. That is the essence of a pattern. Patterns let us predict when the Sun will rise, recognise a wasp before it stings, and spot the same triangle bracing a bridge, a bicycle frame and a factory roof.

Key concept
Repetition
The same unit copied side by side, like the hexagons of a honeycomb, giving strong structure with the least material.

Key concept
Spiral
A curve that winds outward as it grows, the shape a nautilus uses to add space and a DNA molecule to pack information.

Key concept
Fractal
A shape that looks the same at every scale, like a broccoli floret that is a tiny copy of the whole head.

Bill Nye’s demonstrations

Bill wheels out his repeating roller pattern maker to print sun, wave and moon over and over. He shows a nautilus shell to explain how a spiral lets an animal add a new room by building only one wall. He points to zebras and leopards for camouflage, snaps a broccoli floret in half to reveal the same shape as the whole head, and reveals the Fibonacci sequence of spirals on a pinecone and a sunflower.

Try this at home

The tie dye pattern. Take a plain cotton T shirt, roll it up tightly and wrap rubber bands around it every few centimetres, then follow the pack instructions to make up a bucket of fabric dye and hold the shirt under the dye with a stick. After a few hours, rinse and untie. The rubber bands blocked the dye in a repeating way, so your shirt now carries a symmetrical pattern you designed with your own hands.

Cool facts

Zebra stripes make it hard for a lion to pick out a single animal in a running herd.
DNA carries a huge amount of information because it is twisted into a compact double spiral.
The Fibonacci sequence is named after a mathematician who lived about 800 years ago.
Rebar hidden inside concrete is arranged in a grid pattern that stops it cracking under load.

Science update: since this episode aired

Researchers led by the University of Edinburgh used 3D reconstructions of a 407 million year old Scottish clubmoss to show that its leaves grow in non Fibonacci spirals, overturning the old idea that Fibonacci patterns were locked into land plants from the very beginning. University of Edinburgh, 2023
Scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology filmed hundreds of thousands of cuttlefish skin changes and found that the animal’s camouflage is far more flexible than thought, exploring the pattern space in searching, correcting movements rather than snapping to fixed templates. Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, 2023
A 2024 review in the journal Cell, led by researchers including the University of Oxford, shows that the same self organising rules Alan Turing proposed in the 1950s explain not only leopard spots and zebra stripes but also how skin, hair and even some tumours form their patterns. Oxford University Research Archive, 2024

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Curriculum focus

Built on NGSS MS-LS4-2 (anatomical similarities and patterns), MS-LS4-4 (natural selection and adaptation) and MS-ETS1-2 (evaluating design solutions). Complementing that, it is pitched at KS3 biology and mathematics (variation, inheritance and pattern) and works as an introduction or revision aid for GCSE and IGCSE biology, mathematics and combined science on adaptation, camouflage, sequences and geometry, across boards such as AQA, Edexcel, OCR and Cambridge IGCSE. The worksheet and critical thinking questions take these ideas further than the episode alone.

NGSS MS-LS4
KS3 biology
GCSE revision
IGCSE revision
Patterns
Fibonacci