Concept

Measure — where it appears

3 essays name this object, across 2 fields. What follows is each of them, and the objects they name alongside it.
Fibonacci59.6%Lucas20.8%whorled10.7%other8.9%5 distinct pairs over 1200 divergencesrise 0.100Fibonacci 59.6%

How often is it Fibonacci

The claim that plant spirals come in consecutive Fibonacci numbers is stated as a near-universal. Asked of the geometry, the answer collapses with scale — at a coarse rise 67% of divergences give Fibonacci pairs, and at a fine one 15%, with whorled and unnamed pairs taking the rest.

wrong · frequency
204012345range at which the interaction has halved, in local spacingsnear-shell contrast — the first shell's variation over the second'swhat the exponent sweep leavesp = 1 · shells 0–2 and 2–4 spacingscontrasts 6% apart, ranges 47%

Two shapes, one threshold

Read in the same unit, an exponential falloff and a gaussian one disagree about where the lattice ends by half. The quantity they agree on turns out to be one the previous phase measured for an unrelated reason — and it agrees with a bracket left by a sweep of a completely different parameter.

emergence · falloff exponent
field1.64°intact to 0.015, broken by 0.02jostle1.72°intact to 1, broken by 1.4placement1.42°intact to 0.8, broken by 13 runs per amplitudescatters 19% apart

The boundary belongs to the pattern

Three kinds of noise, in three incommensurable units, destroy a lattice at the same place — about a degree and a half of divergence scatter. The previous phase measured that of two kinds and called it a scale rather than a constant. With a third it looks less like a coincidence and more like a property of what a lattice is.

emergence · scatter tolerance

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

Divergence angleEnsembleIdentifiabilityLattice offsetNearest neighbourThe placement ruleBasinBranchBranch selectionCensusClassificationContinuity

All concepts