No, that’s not a typo. The numbers you see in the headline for this article are the first four numbers of the magical, mystical, and truly weird Fibonacci sequence. Here’s how it works.

Every number in the sequence is the sum of the previous two numbers. You have to start somewhere – and one is a great place to start anything, right? There’s nothing before one except zero, so if you add zero plus one you get one again. That’s why the first two numbers are both one. (Zero is mathematically a part of the equation, but most of the time you will see the sequence starting with one.)

Then …

1 + 1 = 2
1 + 2 = 3
2 + 3 = 5
3 + 5 = 8

… and so on. In this way you continue on and on forever. Here’s a list of the first 20 Fibonacci numbers.

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765

You might be saying to yourself, “Big deal. What’s so special about that, math nerd?” I’m glad you asked. It turns out that Fibonacci numbers are very special indeed. They show up all around us.

Count the petals on the blossom of a flower. Many times, the number at which you arrive is a number from the Fibonacci sequence. Flowers like irises and lilies have three petals. Buttercups have five. Some flowers have eight. Daisies have thirty-four.

Check out the bottom of a pine cone or the spiraling patterns on the head of a sunflower. How many spirals are there? That’s right – the number is in the sequence. Even more weird is the fact that if you count the spirals turning left and the spirals turning left you will find that these are consecutive numbers in the sequence.

Patterns in fruits and vegetables like pineapples and cauliflower also reveal the sequence.

Look at your own body. You have one nose, two eyes, three segments to your limbs, five fingers on each hand, and five toes on each foot.
Let’s go deeper into your body. If you look at the structure of DNA, you will find that the DNA molecule is 34 angstroms long and 21 angstroms wide for each cycle of the double helix that forms its structure. Both 34 and 21 are on the list.

Creeped out yet?

Well, it gets weirder. Suppose you make a little square using the first number in the sequence as the measurement of the sides of the square. If you use inches, this first square would measure one inch by one inch. Now, do that with the next number, which is also a one. Put those two squares beside each other and you will make one continuous edge that is two inches long. That’s the next number in the sequence. Make a new square using the newly formed edge as one of the sides. (Look at the picture above. It will help.) Now you have three squares. Along the long edge, you have a total of three inches. You guessed it. That’s the next number.

Make a new square with your three-inch edge and keep it attached to the original three squares. Now you have a big rectangle measuring three by five inches. Keep going. That five-inch side forms the start of your newest square. When it’s done, you have a new rectangle measuring five by eight. Keep it moving with that new side measuring eight inches. That’s as far as my picture goes, but imagine the pattern going on forever – square, rectangle, square, rectangle, etc.

It turns out that the rectangles formed and the spiral that you can inscribe inside of them are very important. As you get higher and higher into the sequence, the ratio between the long and short sides of the rectangle approach a special number known as the “Golden Ratio”. It is a non-repeating, non-terminating decimal that figures out to be 1.6180339887 … This is a number referred to by mathematicians using the Greek letter phi.

That ratio, like the sequence itself, shows up all over the place. The spiral can be seen in everything from seashells to hurricanes to spiral arm galaxies. Remember all my blabbering about honeybees in previous articles? Well, the ratio shows up there also. Check this out. https://gwbuzz.com/2013/02/08/honeybee-and-the-fibonacci-sequence/

There is a strange and wonderful order to our universe. The Fibonacci sequence and the ubiquitous phi are part of what exposes this beautiful reality. I like to think of it as the fingerprint of God – the signature of the artist.

This article was written by Tilmer Wright, Jr. Tilmer is an IT professional with over thirty years of experience wrestling with technology. In his spare time, he writes books. One of his books, The Bit Dance, paints a picture of what could happen should AI find independence and freedom from the confines of human interference. It’s exactly as creepy as it sounds. You can find links to Tilmer’s books at the following link.

https://www.amazon.com/Tilmer-Wright/e/B00DVKGG4K?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_2…

The picture of the golden spiral is used under the Creative Commons License. The original file was created by Valerio.b, a member of the Wikipedia community. The original file may be found here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AureaFibonacci.jpg