Fibonacci sequence in nature pinecone4/15/2024 The Fascination of the Fibonacci Sequenceīut why is it so fascinating? For one thing, it demonstrates the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate fields. While this may seem like a mathematical curiosity, it has proven to be applicable in many fields, from art and design to computer science. He found that, assuming a pair of rabbits reproduces at the age of one month, and that each pair can produce one new pair every month, the resulting number of rabbit pairs follows the Fibonacci sequence. įor more about basic fibonacci, try the books “Fascinating Fibonaccis: Mystery and Magic in Numbers” and Trudi Hammel Garland’s “Fibonacci Fun: Fascinating Activities with Intriguing Numbers” (both from Dale Seymour Publications).Fibonacci himself first stumbled upon this concept while studying the breeding patterns of rabbits. Try it.įor a good visual explanation of fibonacci in nature, visit. Enter fibonacci: Divide any fibonacci number by the fibonacci number before or after it and you get 0.618… or 1.618…, not exactly at first, but closer and closer the higher the fibonacci number you start with. A pleasing ratio, it turns out, is 0.618… or, if you want to use the inverse, 1.618…. In a painting, for example, the Golden Cut states that the ratio of the distance of the focal point from the closer side to the farther side of a painting is the same as the ratio of the distance from the farther side to the painting’s whole width. It turns out there are certain proportions we humans generally find pleasing: the rectangular proportions of a painting, for example, or the placement of a focal point in a painting. All are fractions with fibonacci numbers, at least. So if the stems made three full circles to get a bud back where it started and generated eight buds getting there, the fraction is 3/8, with each bud 3/8 of a turn off its neighbor upstairs or downstairs.ĭifferent plants have favored fractions, but they evidently don’t read the books because I just computed fractions of 1/3 and 3/8 on a single apple stem, which is supposed to have a fraction of 2/5. You can determine the fraction on your dormant stem by finding a bud directly above another one, then counting the number of full circles the stem went through to get there while generating buds in between. Eureka, the numbers in those fractions are fibonacci numbers! The amount of spiraling varies from plant to plant, with new leaves developing in some fraction – such as 2/5, 3/5, 3/8 or 8/13 – of a spiral. The buds range up the stem in a spiral pattern, which kept each leaf out of the shadow of leaves just above it. To confirm this, bring in a leafless stem from some tree or shrub and look at its buds, where leaves were attached. Scales and bracts are modified leaves, and the spiral arrangements in pine cones and pineapples reflect the spiral growth habit of stems. The number of spirals in either direction is a fibonacci number. Actually two spirals, running in opposite directions, with one rising steeply and the other gradually from the cone’s base to its tip.Ĭount the number of spirals in each direction – a job made easier by dabbing the bracts along one line of each spiral with a colored marker. Look carefully and you’ll notice that the bracts that make up the cone are arranged in a spiral. To see how it works in nature, go outside and find an intact pine cone (or any other cone). So the sequence, early on, is 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 and so on. What do pine cones and paintings have in common? A 13th century Italian mathematician named Leonardo of Pisa.īetter known by his pen name, Fibonacci, he came up with a number sequence that keeps popping up throughout the plant kingdom, and the art world too.Ī fibonacci sequence is simple enough to generate: Starting with the number one, you merely add the previous two numbers in the sequence to generate the next one.
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