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Fibonacci number
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A tiling with squares whose sides are successive Fibonacci numbers in length A Fibonacci spiral, created by drawing arcs connecting the opposite corners of squares in theFibonacci tiling shown above – seegolden spiralInmathematics, the
Fibonacci numbers
form asequencedefined by the followingrecurrence
relation: That is, after two starting values, each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. The firstFibonacci numbers (sequenceA000045 inOEIS), also denoted as
F
n
, for
n
= 0, 1, … , are:0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765, 10946,17711, 28657, 46368, 75025, 121393, ...(Sometimes this sequence is considered to start at
F
1
= 1, but in this article it is regarded as beginning with
F
0
=0.)The Fibonacci numbers are named after Leonardo of Pisa, known asFibonacci, although they had been described earlier inIndia.[1][2]
•
The Fibonacci numbers first appeared, under the name
mātrāmeru
(mountain of cadence), in thework of theSanskrit grammarian Pingala(
Chandah-shāstra
, the Art of Prosody,450 or 200 BC).
Prosodywas important in ancient Indian ritual because of an emphasis on the purity of utterance.TheIndian mathematician Virahanka(6th century AD) showed how the Fibonacci sequence arose
in the analysis of metreswith long and short syllables. Subsequently, theJain philosopher
Hemachandra(c.1150) composed a well-known text on these. A commentary on Virahanka's work
byGopālain the 12th century also revisits the problem in some detail.Sanskrit vowel sounds can be long (L) or short (S), and Virahanka's analysis, which came to beknown as
mātrā-vtta
ṛ
, wishes to compute how many metres (
mātrā
s) of a given overall length can be composed of these syllables. If the long syllable is twice as long as the short, the solutions are:1mora: S (1 pattern)2 morae: SS; L (2)3 morae: SSS, SL; LS (3)4 morae: SSSS, SSL, SLS; LSS, LL (5)5 morae: SSSSS, SSSL, SSLS, SLSS, SLL; LSSS, LSL, LLS (8)6 morae: SSSSSS, SSSSL, SSSLS, SSLSS, SLSSS, LSSSS, SSLL, SLSL, SLLS, LSSL,LSLS, LLSS, LLL (13)7 morae: SSSSSSS, SSSSSL, SSSSLS, SSSLSS, SSLSSS, SLSSSS, LSSSSS, SSSLL,SSLSL, SLSSL, LSSSL, SSLLS, SLSLS, LSSLS, SLLSS, LSLSS, LLSSS, SLLL, LSLL,LLSL, LLLS (21)A pattern of length
n
can be formed by adding S to a pattern of length
n
−1, or L to a pattern of length
n
−2; and the prosodicists showed that the number of patterns of length n is the sum of thetwo previous numbers in the series.Donald Knuthreviews this work in
as equivalent formulations of the bin packing problemfor items of lengths 1 and 2.
In the West, the sequence was first studied by Leonardo of Pisa, known asFibonacci, in his Liber
Abaci(1202)[3]. He considers the growth of an idealised (biologically unrealistic) rabbit
population, assuming that:
•
in the first month there is just one newly-born pair,
•
new-born pairs become fertile from their second month on
•
each month every fertile pair begets a new pair, and
•
the rabbits never dieLet the population at month
n
be
F
(
n
). At this time, only rabbits who were alive at month
n
−2 arefertile and produce offspring, so
F
(
n
−2) pairs are added to the current population of
F
(
n
−1). Thusthe total is
F
(
n
) =
F
(
n
−1) +
F
(
n
−2).[4]
Fibonacci numbers also appear in the description of the reproduction of a population of idealized bees, according to the following rules:
•
If an egg is laid by an unmated female, it hatches a male.
•
If, however, an egg was fertilized by a male, it hatches a female.Thus, a male bee will always have one parent, and a female bee will have two.If one traces the ancestry of any male bee (1 bee), he has 1 female parent (1 bee). This female had 2 parents, a male and a female (2 bees). The female had two parents, a male and a female, and themale had one female (3 bees). Those two females each had two parents, and the male had one (5 bees). This sequence of numbers of parents is the Fibonacci sequence.[5]
This is an idealization that does not describe
actual
bee ancestries. In reality, some ancestors of a particular bee will always be sisters or brothers, thus breaking the lineage of distinct parents.
The golden ratio.Thegolden ratio( phi), also written τ (tau), is defined as the ratio that results when a line is
divided so that the whole line has the same ratio to the larger segment as the larger segment has tothe smaller segment. Expressed algebraically, normalising the larger part to unit length, it is the positive solution of the equation:or equivalentlywhich is equal to:
Like every sequence defined by linear recurrence,the Fibonacci numbers have a closed-form
solution. It has become known asBinet's formula, even though it was already known by Abraham
de Moivre:where is the golden ratio (note, thatfrom the defining equation above).The Fibonacci recursion is similar to the defining equation of the golden ratio in the form which is also known as the generating polynomial of the recursion.
Proof
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