Patterns

Have you ever noticed how the petals of a daisy make a perfect circle? Or how a zebra’s stripes go black, white, black, white, over and over again? What about the tiny, six-sided shapes in a snowflake or the bumpy, repeating squares on a turtle's shell? That’s me! I am hiding in all those places. I’m in the songs you sing, with a part that repeats over and over—that’s called the chorus! I’m in the red, yellow, green, red, yellow, green of a traffic light. I’m in the bricks of your school and the tiles on your kitchen floor, all lined up in neat rows. I am the secret rule that makes things look orderly and feel just right. I help you know what's coming next, like when you know the next bead on a necklace will be blue because it goes red, blue, red, blue. Hello! My name is Patterns.

For a very, very long time, I was just hiding in plain sight in nature, like in the waves of the ocean or the rings inside a tree trunk. Then, thousands and thousands of years ago, people started to notice me. It was like they found a secret code! Around 70,000 BCE, some of the very first artists saw me. In a place called Blombos Cave in South Africa, they used a sharp tool to carve crisscross lines onto rocks. They made a special design that repeated, creating some of the first decorations ever made by humans. They saw how beautiful I could be. Later, in amazing places like ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia around 3000 BCE, people used me to make all sorts of wonderful things. They wove me into baskets, creating checkered looks with different colored reeds. They painted me on pottery with zigzags and swirls that went all the way around the clay pots. They even built huge temples with tall columns that repeated in a perfect, strong line. It was like they were saying, 'Look at this strong, beautiful building!'. They learned that I could make things not only pretty but also very strong and steady. Even later, wise people in ancient Greece, around the 6th century BCE, discovered I was hiding in numbers and music, too! They found me in the rhythm of a song and in the way numbers could repeat to make math make sense.

Today, I’m still everywhere, helping you learn and create new things. I’m in the way the seasons change every year, from chilly winter to sunny spring, then to warm summer and colorful fall, before starting all over again. I’m in the stories you read, where a hero often faces a challenge, finds a way to solve it, and learns an important lesson. That’s a story pattern! Artists use me to make their paintings and sculptures feel balanced and fun to look at. Scientists look for me in the stars in the night sky and in the leaves on plants to understand how our amazing world works. I am a clue to help you figure things out, a recipe for making something beautiful, and a rhythm that makes you want to dance. The world is full of my secrets. What patterns will you discover today?