What Is a Pattern?

What is a pattern?

A pattern is something that repeats in the same order.

Look at this: 🔴 🔵 🔴 🔵 🔴 🔵

Red, blue, red, blue. The colours take turns, again and again. That is a pattern!

Patterns are everywhere

You can find patterns all around you:

• Colours: red, blue, red, blue on a scarf.
• Shapes: circle, square, circle, square.
• Sounds: clap, stomp, clap, stomp.
• Numbers: 2, 4, 6, 8.

Try to find a pattern in your room right now. Maybe the floor tiles? Maybe the stripes on a shirt?

Guessing what comes next

Here is the best part. When you know the pattern, you can guess what comes next.

🟡 🟢 🟡 🟢 🟡 ... what is next?

The pattern is yellow, green, yellow, green. So next is green! You guessed it from the pattern.

Patterns and smart machines

Here is a secret. Smart machines find patterns too.

Show a machine lots of cat pictures. It starts to notice the same things: pointy ears, whiskers, a tail. That is a pattern.

Then it can look at a new picture and guess: "That is a cat!" It used the pattern, just like you did.

Keep going

Want to see how machines learn from patterns? Read How Does AI Learn?.

You can also meet the clever software in Meet Artificial Intelligence.