Description
A tiling with squares whose side lengths are successive Fibonacci numbers
In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers are the numbers in the following integer sequence, called the Fibonacci sequence, and characterized by the fact that every number after the first two is the sum of the two preceding ones:
- {\displaystyle 1,\;1,\;2,\;3,\;5,\;8,\;13,\;21,\;34,\;55,\;89,\;144,\;\ldots }
Often, especially in modern usage, the sequence is extended by one more initial term:
- {\displaystyle 0,\;1,\;1,\;2,\;3,\;5,\;8,\;13,\;21,\;34,\;55,\;89,\;144,\;\ldots }.
The Fibonacci spiral: an approximation of the golden spiralcreated by drawing circular arcs connecting the opposite corners of squares in the Fibonacci tiling; this one uses squares of sizes 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 and 21.
By definition, the first two numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are either 1 and 1, or 0 and 1, depending on the chosen starting point of the sequence, and each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two.
The sequence Fn of Fibonacci numbers is defined by the recurrence relation:
- {\displaystyle F_{n}=F_{n-1}+F_{n-2},}
with seed values
- {\displaystyle F_{1}=1,\;F_{2}=1}
or
- {\displaystyle F_{0}=0,\;F_{1}=1.}
Fibonacci numbers appear to have first arisen in perhaps 200 BC in work by Pingala on enumerating possible patterns of poetry formed from syllables of two lengths. The Fibonacci sequence is named after Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, known as Fibonacci. His 1202 book Liber Abaci introduced the sequence to Western European mathematics, although the sequence had been described earlier in Indian mathematics. The sequence described in Liber Abaci began with F1 = 1. Fibonacci numbers were later independently discussed by Johannes Kepler in 1611 in connection with approximations to the pentagon. Their recurrence relation appears to have been understood from the early 1600s, but it has only been in the past very few decades that they have in general become widely discussed.
Fibonacci numbers are closely related to Lucas numbers {\displaystyle L_{n}} in that they form a complementary pair of Lucas sequences {\displaystyle U_{n}(1,-1)=F_{n}} and {\displaystyle V_{n}(1,-1)=L_{n}}. They are intimately connected with the golden ratio; for example, the closest rational approximations to the ratio are 2/1, 3/2, 5/3, 8/5, … .
Fibonacci numbers appear unexpectedly often in mathematics, so much so that there is an entire journal dedicated to their study, the Fibonacci Quarterly. Applications of Fibonacci numbers include computer algorithms such as the Fibonacci search technique and the Fibonacci heap data structure, and graphs called Fibonacci cubes used for interconnecting parallel and distributed systems. They also appear in biological settings, such as branching in trees, phyllotaxis (the arrangement of leaves on a stem), the fruit sprouts of a pineapple, the flowering of an artichoke, an uncurling fern and the arrangement of a pine cone‘s bracts.
