The Geometry of the Epeira's Web 



Will it never be given to us to probe reality in 

 a simpler fashion? Will our intelligence be 

 able one day to dispense with the heavy 

 arsenal of formulae? Why not? 



Here we have the abracadabric number e 

 reappearing, inscribed on a Spider's thread. 

 Let us examine, on a misty morning, the mesh- 

 work that has been constructed during the 

 night. Owing to their hygrometrical nature, 

 the sticky threads are laden with tiny drops, 

 and, bending under the burden, have become 

 so many catenaries, so many chaplets of limpid 

 gems, graceful chaplets arranged in exquisite 

 order and following the curve of a swing. If 

 the sun pierce the mist, the whole lights up 

 with iridescent fires and becomes a resplendent 

 cluster of diamonds. The number e is in its 



glory- 

 Geometry, that is to say, the science of 

 harmony in space, presides over everything. 

 We find it in the arrangement of the scales of 

 a fir-cone, as in the arrangement of an Epeira's 

 lime-snare; we find it in the spiral of a Snail- 

 shell, in the chaplet of a Spider's thread, as in 

 the orbit of a planet; it is everywhere, as 

 perfect in the world of atoms as in the world 

 of immensities. 



399 



