Nature exhibits a seemingly endless array of patterns – from the cow’s spots to
the surgeonfish’s stripes to the cheetah’s spots and stripes – but Alan Turing (the
guy who invented computers) thought those patterns might not actually be all that different.
To show what he meant, he came up with a simple set of mathematical rules that could give
rise to all manner of patterns.
The rules go something like this: Inside each theoretical organism, there are