Fibonacci numbers explain how things expand and why they give rise to spirals. You can find Fibonacci numbers all over the natural world. The number of petals on a flower is a Fibonacci number. Cut open a fruit, and you'll find a star shape with a Fibonacci number of arms. A banana has a three-pointed star, and apple a five-pointed star. The cells on a pineapple have several Fibonacci numbers. If you take squares whose dimensions correspond to the Fibonacci numbers, then you can arrange them in an expanding rectangle.

Fibonacci numbers are important

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21…Every number in the sequence is created by adding together the two previous numbers. The next Fibonacci number is 13 + 21 = 34. Hidden inside this sequence is the golden ratio. Many artists regard the golden circle as the perfect proportion for a canvas.

The Fibonacci sequence

The numbers are named after a 13th-century Italian mathematician known as Leonardo Bonacci. In 1853, historian Guillaume Libri started to refer to him as Fibonacci (son of Bonacci). In 1202, Fibonacci wrote about these numbers in Liber Abaci. The book was meant to support new ways of doing computation as Europe still used Roman numerals and the abacus to do calculations. He explained the power of the Hindu Arabic numerals, and how the Indians used the numbers 1 to 9 with a revolutionary new concept of 0 in a place number system.

Origin of Fibonacci numbers

The numbers were discovered by Indian poets and musicians who used them to understand rhythm in music and poetry. Modern musicians also used the Fibonacci numbers in their work. Debussy used them in his La Mer, Bartok in his Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta. There's a new form of poetry named Fib, where each line has syllables corresponding to the Fibonacci sequence.

Fibonacci did not discover these numbers

The Fibonacci sequence is used in art, composition, maths, nature, music, investing and more. 

Flowers, pinecones, shells, fruits, hurricanes and even spiral galaxies, all exhibit the Fibonacci sequence.

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