Are There Any Straight Lines In Nature?

[Always Free]

I can't really think of any truly straight lines or edges in nature.

Hair perhaps? If you look at a hair under a microscope it has anything but a straight edge. Some trees appear straight as they grow but they have bark and branches etc all over it.

Perhaps something microscopic is straight? Maybe it's staring me in the face and I just haven't noticed.

 

[Yahweh]

If you look closely at a monocot plant you see that all the veins form in straight parallel lines.

Light also "flows" in straight lines (given that there it is going through a vacuum and there are no major gravitational bodies bending space or something like that).

On Earth, straight lines are very rare. But is it very easy to find perfect rectangles, occurences of Fibbonacci (spelling) numbers, and fractals everywhere you look.

 

[Jon_in_london]

crystals.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Virtually all movement , unless acted upon by an external force.

-OK, geodesic really, but straight enough for government work.

 

[LTC8K6]

The giant's causeway maybe?

 

[Monketi Ghost]

The giant's causeway maybe?

In what sense is the Giant's Causeway straight?

 

[pgwenthold]

The individual strands of a spider web, from point to point, are straight lines (at least orthagonal to the ground; with respect to the ground, they will sag slightly).

Consider electrical lines. If you look from the side, they sag. But if you look perfectly perpindicular to the ground, they are perfectly straight.

 

[alfaniner]

The horizon.

 

[Agammamon]

. . .Light also "flows" in straight lines (given that there it is going through a vacuum and there are no major gravitational bodies bending space or something like that). . .

Actually the light is travelling in a straight line through curved space.

 

[shemp]

Here's a few straight lines:

"Why did the chicken cross the road?"

"Two peanuts walk into a bar."

"My mother-in-law is so fat!"

 

[eli54]

The horizon from the top of Pikes Peak is a arc!

 

[Nucular]

Ley lines

 

[Captain_Snort]

The horizon from the top of Pikes Peak is a arc!

maybe he was refering to the fact that the earth is in actual fact flat, all the spheroid, geoid nonsense is a load of balls.

 

[BillyJoe]

THERE ARE 14 STRAIGHT LINES IN NATURE

 

[Nucular]

THERE ARE 14 STRAIGHT LINES IN NATURE

WHAT ARE THEY?

 

[LTC8K6]

In what sense is the Giant's Causeway straight?

Try thinking of the bits that make up the giant's causeway.

Also, look up the definition of maybe.

 

[King of the Americas]

'...In Nature'...?

Exactly what does that mean 'in nature'?

Why aren't 'we' nature, and why aren't OUR products 'natural'?

I mean, we CAME 'from' the evolutionary process, right???

Or are the origins of this term suspect?

We as a collective people are not 'natural', and neither are our products. Compared to the animal world, we are in fact quite supernatural. I can't help but wonder how it came to be so...

I have a ruler on my desk, with a line as straight as they come.

If a bunch of beavers built a dam with perfectly straight lines, and right angle edges and corners, would that be 'in nature'? Why are our creations any less worthy of the description?

 

[Frostbite]

I've seen straight lines in nature. Here's an example from Yonaguni, Japan:

Geologists say these are extremely rare, streaky erosion patterns. Or, they're manmade.

 

[King of the Americas]

Wow...

...the first one, actually looks like a platform with big steps at the far end...

Sense when does water form those kinds of erosion patterns?

Weird stuff.

*Edited to Add*

But definately manmade:

http://www.atlantisrising.com/issue13/ar13japanunder.html


Taken from the site:

"What evidence has so far been collected suggests that the site did not succumb to a sudden geologic catastrophe. Aside from one or two monuments leaning at irregular angles, none of them displays any structural damage, no cracks or fallen stones. Instead, they appear in unruined, virtually pristine condition. They were either overwhelmed by rising sea-levels, sank with a slowly collapsing land-mass, or some combination of both. Most researchers opt for the last scenario, since oceanographers tell us that sea-levels rose from 100 feet 1.7 million years ago. Even so, the Japanese sites must be very old. They are constantly being swept clean by strong currents, so radiocarbon dating material is not available."

 

[Checkmite]

Hexagonal basalt can contain straight lines.

Not all the lines on the basalt are straight, of course; but many of them are.

How about a cliff made of hexagonal basalt?

Crystals inside amethyst geodes form straight lines and even right angles.

Same thing with quartz: