Essay Practice

Humans Are Pattern-seeking Animals

Throughout the pageant of human history, hundreds of patterns or rules have been discovered as well as invented by mankind ourselves. It is not difficult for us to realize the fact that there are so many patterns around us by taking a small glimpse at them, for instance: getting up at 7 o’clock in the morning and go to bed before 12 o’clock at night; farmers seed in spring and harvest in autumn; people eat three times a day with reasonable intervals between each meals, so on and so forth. Apart from these simple patterns which mostly are based on experiences instead of academic study and results, there are still plenty of profound patterns found or created by scientists or mathematicians, such as: the relation between x and y in quadratic functions; the patterns in arithmetic sequences and the fixed mode of electric current flow in electric circuit.

After seeing so many different kinds of patterns in our universe, two thought-provoking knowledge questions appear in my mind:

1. To what extent do patterns assist human in terms of convenience and development?

2. In what ways does human discover or invent patterns?

Moreover, synthesizing my personal experience of seeking patterns with the story of a famous scientist studying patterns in the following paragraphs, might be able to provide some deep-going and insightful answers to these two knowledge questions.

During my long path of study and school-life, I even managed to find out some interesting patterns in some of my subjects and applied them in exams or solving problems. For example: In math exams, I noticed that the arrangement of questions is always following the order of difficulty of complexity. That is to say, the hardest question is most likely to be at the end while the easies one is right at the beginning. Therefore, I made a plan of the order of solving question during math exams, which is to do the questions at the end first, then do those easiest questions at the beginning, lastly, finish those of medium difficulty. The reason I did it this way is because I intended to save all my energy, vitality and concentration for the questions that require them the most. Unlike the way others write exams, I don’t want the easy questions to consume my activeness, so I do the hard ones with fully prepared mind and confidence. Surprisingly, I got some satisfying scores which I couldn’t get by using the regular method. Ever since then, I began to trust this pattern of answering exams and fortunately math exams seemed to be more relaxing and simpler for me. I think it is because I finally created an appropriate pattern of solving questions which is suitable and comfortable for me, and such pattern helped me immensely by allowing me to maximize my strength in my favorite way. Different pattern fits different people, I found the right pattern and it upgraded my academic performance.

Another powerful example is one of the most indispensable patterns in the world, discovered by Mendeleev in 17th century — the periodic table. However, Mendeleev wasn’t the first scientist who collected the information and made the table of elements, there were many so called “ the prototypes” of periodic table among scientific cycle before Mendeleev. Due to the loss of communication and agreements, those prototypes were eliminated afterwards. It was Mendeleev who firstly decided to make a perfect period table which is understandable, distinct and precise. Thus, he rearranged the order of elements those previous scientists have arranged; then he made up his mind to put elements in an increasing order of atomic mass, instead of the order of property affinity or state at room temperature. He discovered this incredible pattern which nobody has ever noticed in the past, and it is his contribution of making the periodic table that leaded chemistry into a brand new world. Even till now, we are still using the periodic table which was created over 200 years ago. It is self-evident that the impact periodic table had on human being and the development it elicited in scientific field.

On the basis of the two examples above, the answers to those two knowledge questions are much more evidence-based and rational. I believe that patterns have been playing a crucial role in the development of human process; it not only provided us so many convenience but also accelerated and inspired science discoveries by saving a lot of troubles and monotonous procedures. Moreover, human have being striving to seek suitable patterns and to created “artificial” patterns to help life get better. Typical examples will be math, which is invented by human as well as languages. In a nut shell, mankind truly is a “pattern-seeking” animal, we are more inclined to summarize our accumulated experiences and to reveal the essence of nature within every ordinary phenomena; meanwhile, patterns have been benefiting us for a long period of time, without patterns, humans’ life would be unimaginable.

Work Cited:

"化学元素周期表起源简介“ www.zhidao.baidu.com , 花茂△TvJj, 20171125, 20180313.