It’s easy to forget how interesting common things can be. By using them, existing with them, encountering them daily, bizarre objects can begin to feel very normal.

In developing our amplifier for iPhone, the ampjacket, we may have forgotten at times how incredible smartphone technology is, for instance. Or, in the spirit of the Earshots’ namesake, the complexity and intrinsic weirdness of the human ear. So, we thought we’d drag these musings into the spotlight for a little bit.

The Human Ear

Its shape isn’t unique, though it looks rather strange in the context of a human head, doesn’t it? The ear has developed over the years to capture and funnel sound into itself in something like a spiral. The spiral occurs throughout nature, almost insistently.

We can find it all around us!

Spirals occur time and again in mathematics, as well. Have you ever heard of the Fibonacci spiral? The Fibonacci Sequence, from which the spiral is derived is a series of numbers where each successive number is the sum of the previous two. Ex: it goes 1,1,2,3,5,8… because 1+1 is 2, 1+2 is 3, 2+3 is 5, etc. If you create a series of rectangles that each have an area that is a Fibonacci sequence number and draw an arc around them, the result is a spiral.

The figure below looks a bit like an ear, doesn’t it?

Fibonacci sequence numbers occur time and again in nature as well. The number of petals in flowers that you encounter in nature is typically a Fibonacci sequence number. The branches of a tree typically split into numbers from the Fibonacci sequence.

Spines on a pineapple, the number of pairs of rabbits and bees that reproduce in a family tree, all these things typically contain numbers from the Fibonacci sequence.

So, what can we take from all this? It’s not for us to make meaning from the mystery; we just make iPhone amplifier cases and the like, but it’s the mysteries of nature that keep us inspired here at kubxlab. 

It’s just a little food for thought, something to consider next time you’re counting the spines on a porcupine, or something like that.

Have you ever noticed repeating patterns in nature? Tell us about them on Facebook and Twitter, and keep reading the blog for more updates!