Abstract

Most of the biological and earth sciences are concerned with finding the differences between things and the magnitude of those differences, while science is occupied exploring these spaces and changes, religion is looking for a way to establish a unity of the parts. An interesting and valid question can be formulated by synthesizing the dedication to detail of the one with the great encompassing cohesiveness of the other. What is there to be seen if the form, material, structure, function and size of objects and organisms were to be investigated with the overview sought by religion? ;Our world is comprised of a diversity of form; trees, clouds, bicycles, washsinks. These forms have a programmed series of causes and events that lead them to assume their shapes. The separation between the man-made and the natural becomes unimportant in this scheme, but because of complex inter-relations, correlations begin to emerge that relate seemingly diverse elements, dragonfly wings - veins, and sidewalk cracks, seed pods and machines. ;In words and photographs I have examined the primary physical causes of form diversity and similarity. Sometimes totally different objects and organisms appear very similar to one another and take on definite and like patterns as they respond to a spectrum of influences such as structure, the laws governing the subdivisions of space or the legacy of inheritance. In other circumstances the shape of both the living and non-living are made very different by such effects as size and material composition. ;It should be noted that this study is by no means a catalog of all that is possible in the determination of form; the information gathered here is a sampling of some of the simpler aspects of the physical world. Even with this necessary limiting of scope, it can be possible to give insight to that intricate, incredibly complex and beautiful series of interrelationships that exists about us. Those among us who affect the environment to a greater degree---builders, architects, artists and designers---might, with this understanding, approach their work with more compassion and sensitivity. This study is intended to be the outline for a book to be used as a text, but not in the sense that the reader can absorb, memorize and apply a quotient of facts to a given problem. But instead, it is thought that through a few examples the reader will gain the insight for an intuitive and knowing approach to the change of his physical environment