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Exploring the Fibonacci Sequence

Chapter · April 2015

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Exploring the Fibonacci
Sequence Dr. C.K. Ghosh A. I. Khan

T he Fibonacci sequence is named after


Leonardo of Pisa (c. 1170 – c. 1250),
popularly known as Fibonacci (Fig. 1). He
l Month four – After four months, the
original pair gives birth, and the pair
was born in Pisa in AD1175. The son of
born in month two gives birth. The
a merchant who also served as a Customs
pair born in month three mates, but
Officer in North Africa, Fibonacci travelled
does not give birth. This makes two
widely in Barbary (Algeria) and was later sent
new pairs, for a total of five pairs.
on business trips to Egypt, Syria, Greece,
l Month five – After five months, every
Sicily and Provence. In 1200 he returned to
pair that was alive two months ago
Pisa and used the knowledge he had gained
gives birth. This makes three new
on his travels to write Liber Abaci in which he
pairs, for a total of eight…….
introduced the Latin-speaking world to the
Is there a way to predict the number
decimal number system. He wrote a number
in after a certain number of months without
of books such as Liber Abaci (The Book of
going through each individual month? Of
Calculating) in 1202, Practica Geometriae
course we can find the total number of rabbits
(Practical Geometry) in 1220, Flos in 1225,
for any month. The method is to find out how
and Liber Quadratorum (The Book of
many pairs of rabbits were newly born that
Squares) in 1225. Fibonacci sequence is a
month and add that to the number of rabbits
series of numbers in which each number is
we had before the new ones were born.
the sum of the two preceding numbers. First Fig. 1: Leonardo Fibonacci So the question is how many pairs of
few numbers in the series are 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8,
rabbits are newly born every month? Since it
13, 21, 34, 55…
rabbit and one new-born female takes two months for each new pair to give
In India, Fibonacci sequence
rabbit. birth, each pair of rabbits that was alive two
appeared in Sanskrit prosody (a system of
b. A rabbit will reach sexual maturity months ago will give birth to a new pair. In
versification). In the Sanskrit oral tradition,
after one month. other words, the number of new pairs in each
there was much emphasis on how long (L)
c. The gestation period of a rabbit is one month is equal to the number of pairs alive
syllables that are 2 units of duration mix
month. two months ago. Furthermore, the number
with the short (S) syllables that are 1 unit of
d. Once it has reached sexual maturity, of rabbit pairs that were alive before the new
duration. Counting the different patterns of
a female rabbit will give birth every ones were born is simply the number of pairs
L and S within a given fixed length results
month. alive the month before. Thus to find the
in the Fibonacci numbers – the number of
e. A female rabbit will always give birth number of pairs of rabbits, we simply add
patterns that are m short syllables-long is the
to one male and one female rabbit. together the number of pairs that were alive
Fibonacci number Fm + 1.
f. Rabbits never die. in the preceding two months.
According to Susantha Goonatilake
of Royal Asiatic Society Sri Lanka, the So the question is how many male/
development of the Fibonacci sequence “is female rabbit pairs are there after one year Male bee’s family tree
(12 months)? Within a colony of bees, only the queen
attributed in part to Pingala (200 BC), later
l Month zero – At the beginning of produces eggs. If these eggs are fertilised then
being associated with Virahanka (c. AD 700),
the experiment, there is one pair of female worker bees are produced. Male bees
Gopala (c. AD 1135), and Hemchandra (c.
rabbits (drones) are produced by parthenogenesis;
AD 1150)”.
l Month one – After one month, the that is, from unfertilised eggs. Female
bees therefore have two parents; drones in
The Rabbit problem two rabbits have mated but has not
given birth. Therefore, there is still contrast, have just one parent. The ancestry
Fibonacci became interested in the
only one pair of rabbits. of a drone bee (D) and a worker bee (W) is
reproduction of rabbits in the year 1202. He
l Month two – After two months, the shown below.
created an imaginary set of ideal conditions
first pair of rabbits gives birth to a new l Parents (1D, 2W)
under which rabbits could breed and posed
pair, making two pairs in all. l Grandparents (2D, 3W)
the question: “How many pairs of rabbits
l Month three – After three months, l Great Grandparents (3D, 5W)
will there be in a year from now?” The ideal
the original pair gives birth again, and l Great Great Gandparents (5D, 8W)
set of conditions was as follows:
the second pair mate, but do not give l Great Great Great Gandparents (8D,
a. First, begin with one new-born male
birth. This makes three pairs. 13W)

Dream 2047, April 2015, Vol. 17 No. 7 32


Mathematics
l Great Great Great Great Gandparents Fibonacci series (Fig. 3). Its sudden, almost
(13D, 21W) exponential growth parallels the rapid growth
l Great Great Great Great Great of the series itself.
Gandparents (21D, 34W)
We see that both D and W follow the
Fibonacci sequence. Now, let us work out a
recurrence relation for the sequence.

Recurrence relation
Albert Girad (1595-1632), a French-born
mathematician, established recurrence Fig. 5: Fibonacci spirals in a pineapple
relation in Fibonacci numbers
F1 = F2 = 1 l One set of five parallel spirals ascends
Fig. 3: Fibonacci numbers in spiral
Fn = Fn-1 + Fn-2 {for all n ≥ 3 ………..(i)} at a shallow angle to the right
For n = 3 we have l A second set of eight parallel spirals
F3 = F2 + F1 {Substituting in (i)} = 2 The spiral itself is a series of connected ascends more steeply to the left
For n = 4 we have quarter-circles drawn inside an array l And the third set of 13 parallel spirals
F4 = F3 + F2 {Substituting in (i)} = 3 of squares with Fibonacci numbers for ascends very steeply to the right
Similarly, for n = 5, 6, 7 ………… dimensions. This is illustrated in Fig. 4. In pinecones there are eight and
we have thirteen spirals opening to the left and
F5 = 5 right eight and thirteen are consecutive
F6 = 8 Fibonacci numbers. Fibonacci spiral can
F7 = 13 be found in snails and sea shells (Fig. 6).
Hence we have Fibonacci sequence as The resemblance with the spiral of Fig. 3 is
1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55... remarkable. Fibonacci spirals can be found
in cauliflower too.
Binet’s Formula
Once the Fibonacci sequence has been
defined recursively, then, in order to find
each term of the series using the definition, Fig. 4: Fibonacci spiral as a series
we have to find all the terms that precede of connected quarter-circles
it. This makes finding the nth term very
difficult for large values of n, as we must find Fibonacci series in nature
every term that comes before. However, there The rabbit breeding problem that caused
could be a way to find Fibonacci numbers Fibonacci to write about the sequence in Liber
without using the definition. If this were abaci may be unrealistic, but the Fibonacci
possible, one would be able to find the nth numbers really do appear in nature. For
term of the series simply by plugging n into example, some plants branch in such a way Fig. 6: Fibonacci spiral in a Nautilus sea shell
a mathematical formula. In 1843, Jacques that they always have a Fibonacci number
Philippe Marie Binet discovered just such of growing points. Flowers often have a Human hand and fingers
a formula for finding the nth term of the Fibonacci number of petals; daisies can have The Fibonacci numbers exist in human
Fibonacci series. 34, 55 or even as many as 89 petals. hand and fingers. For example, a person
The arrangements of the seeds in a has two hands, which contain five fingers.
Fibonacci spiral sunflower appear to be spiralling outwards Each finger has three parts separated by two
The Fibonacci spiral is a geometric spiral both to the left and the right. In fact there is knuckles.
(Fig. 2) whose growth is regulated by the a Fibonacci number of spirals. It seems that
this arrangement keeps the seeds uniformly Arrangements of
packed no matter how large is the seed petals on a flower
head. The number of petals on a flower is often
one of the Fibonacci numbers. For example,
Pineapples l Two-petalled flowers are those of
Fibonacci sequence is found in pineapples. Crown of thorns.
Pineapple scales are also patterned into l Three-petalled flowers are quite
spirals. Because they are roughly hexagonal common, viz., trillium and iris. There
in shape there are three distinct sets of are hundreds of species, both wild
spirals that can be observed (Fig. 5). They and cultivated, with five petals, viz.,
Fig. 2: Fibonacci spiral are as follows columbine, pinks.

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Mathematics
l Eight-petalled flowers are not as each rectangle is a jigsaw puzzle made up of equal to 1.618.
common as five-petalled ones, but all the earlier squares to form a rectangle. All l The Fibonacci cube is an undirected
there are quite a number of well- the squares and all the rectangles have sides graph with a Fibonacci number
known species with eight petals, viz., which are Fibonacci numbers in length. of nodes that has been proposed
bloodroot. We express each rectangle’s area as a as a network topology for parallel
l Black-eyed susan and Cineraria are 13- sum of its component square areas: computing.
petalled flowers. The outer rings of ray The diagram shows that
florets in the daisy family illustrate the 12 + 12 + 22 + 32 + 52 + 82 + 132 = References:
Fibonacci sequence extremely well. 13×21 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
l Daisies with 13, 21, 34, 55 or 89 And also, the smaller rectangles show: Fibonacci_number; retrieved on 29
petals are quite common. Ordinary 12 + 12 = 1×2 Oct 2013
field daisies have 34 petals (Fig. 7). 12 + 12 + 22 = 2×3 2. http://www.mathsisfun.com/
12 + 12 + 22 + 32 = 3×5 numbers/images; retrieved on 26 Oct
12 + 12 + 22 + 32 + 52 = 5×8 2013
12 + 12 + 22 + 32 + 52 + 82 = 8×13 3. http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/
Thus the pattern will work for any fibslide/fib34sm.gif; retrieved on 26
number of squares of Fibonacci numbers Oct 2013
that we wish to sum. They always total to the 4. http://pass.maths.org.uk/issue3/
largest Fibonacci number used in the squares fiibonacci/; retrieved on 13 May 2013
multiplied by the next Fibonacci number. 5. http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/
To express the relationship in the Personal/R.Knott/Fibonacci/;
language of mathematics: retrieved on 13 May 2013
12 + 1 2 + 22 + 32 + ... + F(n) 2 = F(n)
Fig. 7: Field daisy with 34 petals F(n+1) and it is true for ANY n from 1 Dr. C.K. Ghosh is Regional Director,
upwards. IGNOU Regional Centre Delhi-3, who
After treading the domain of nature, takes keen interest in mathematics. E-mail:
let us come back to the natural home Some interesting applications and ckghosh@ignou.ac.in
of the series, that is, mathematics. The features of the Fibonacci sequence Asharul Islam Khan is a Consultant at
Fibonacci numbers are studied as part of l Fibonacci numbers are used in IGNOU, Maidan Garhi, New Delhi. He
number theory and have applications in computational run-time analysis has keen interest in ICT interactions in
the counting of mathematical objects such of Euclid’s algorithm to determine academic operations and mathematics.
as sets, permutations and sequences and the greatest common divisor of two E-mail: ashar.367@gmail.com
to computer science. Here we present one integers: the worst case input for this
interesting example. algorithm is a pair of consecutive
Fibonacci numbers VP website
Analysing the Fibonacci spiral l The Fibonacci numbers are an
diagram mathematically example of a complete sequence.
Let us look again at the Fibonacci squares This means that every positive integer
joining the diagonals of which lead to a spiral can be written as a sum of Fibonacci
(Fig. 8). Wherever we stop, we will always numbers, where any one number is
get a rectangle, since the next square to add used once at most. Specifically, every
is determined by the longest edge on the positive integer can be written in a
current rectangle. Also, those longest edges unique way as the sum of one or more
are just the sum of the preceding two sides distinct Fibonacci numbers in such a
of squares to be added. Further, we see that way that the sum does not include any
two consecutive Fibonacci numbers.
l Fibonacci numbers are used by some Join Vigyan Prasar digital library to
pseudo-random number generators. read online publications. You may also
l Fibonacci numbers are used in a join the discussion forum to ask science
poly-phase version of the merge sort and technology related questions and
algorithm in which an unsorted list is also answer fellow participants’ queries.
divided into two lists whose lengths We also have streaming science videos,
correspond to sequential Fibonacci science radio serials, online science quiz,
numbers – by dividing the list so hand-on activities, and many more
that the two parts have lengths in the features and programmes related to
Fig. 8: Fibonacci squares that approximate proportion φ; that is, the science and technology. Log-on to www.
lead to a Fibonacci spiral golden ratio, which is approximately vigyanprasar.gov.in

Dream 2047, April 2015, Vol. 17 No. 7 30


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