The 11 Most Beautiful Mathematical Equations]

"Liber Abaci" first introduced the sequence to the Western world. But after a few
scant paragraphs on breeding rabbits, Leonardo of Pisa never mentioned the
sequence again. In fact, it was mostly forgotten until the 19th century, when
mathematicians worked out more about the sequence's mathematical properties.
In 1877, French mathematician Édouard Lucas officially named the rabbit problem
"the Fibonacci sequence," Devlin said.

The Fibonacci sequence and golden ratio are eloquent equations but aren't as magical as they may seem. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

Imaginary meaning
But what exactly is the significance of the Fibonacci sequence? Other than being a
neat teaching tool, it shows up in a few places in nature. However, it's not some
secret code that governs the architecture of the universe, Devlin said.

It's true that the Fibonacci sequence is tightly connected to what's now known as the
golden ratio (which is not even a true ratio because it's an irrational number). Simply
put, the ratio of the numbers in the sequence, as the sequence goes to infinity,
approaches the golden ratio, which is 1.6180339887498948482... From there,
mathematicians can calculate what's called the golden spiral, or a logarithmic spiral
whose growth factor equals the golden ratio. [The 9 Most Massive Numbers in
Existence]
The golden ratio does seem to capture some types of plant growth, Devlin said. For
instance, the spiral arrangement of leaves or petals on some plants follows the
golden ratio. Pinecones exhibit a golden spiral, as do the seeds in a sunflower,
according to "Phyllotaxis: A Systemic Study in Plant Morphogenesis" (Cambridge
University Press, 1994). But there are just as many plants that do not follow this
rule.

"It's not 'God's only rule' for growing things, let's put it that way," Devlin said.

And perhaps the most famous example of all, the seashell known as the nautilus,
does not in fact grow new cells according to the Fibonacci sequence, he said.

When people start to draw connections to the human body, art and architecture,
links to the Fibonacci sequence go from tenuous to downright fictional.

"It would take a large book to document all the misinformation about the golden
ratio, much of which is simply the repetition of the same errors by different
authors," George Markowsky, a mathematician who was then at the University of
Maine, wrote in a 1992 paper in the College Mathematics Journal.
Much of this misinformation can be attributed to an 1855 book by the German
psychologist Adolf Zeising. Zeising claimed the proportions of the human body
were based on the golden ratio. The golden ratio sprouted "golden rectangles,"
"golden triangles" and all sorts of theories about where these iconic dimensions
crop up. Since then, people have said the golden ratio can be found in the
dimensions of the Pyramid at Giza, the Parthenon, Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian
Man" and a bevy of Renaissance buildings. Overarching claims about the ratio bein