Worksheet Solutions - Fibonacci Numbers

Q1. Write down the first thirty Fibonacci numbers.

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, 196418, 317811, 514229, 832040

Q2. Use your answer to Q1 to write down F14 , F17 , F22 and F29

We have

F14 = 377
F17 = 1597
F22 = 17711
F29 = 514229

Q3. Recall Binet’s formula for the nth Fibonacci number

√ √
(1 + 5)n − (1 − 5)n
Fn = √
2n 5
Use this formula to compute F100 and F200 . (Note that your calculator might not be able
to do this calculation so you may need to use a computer)

√ √
(1 + 5)100 − (1 − 5)100
F100 = √
2100 5
= 354, 224, 848, 179, 261, 915, 075
√ √
(1 + 5)200 − (1 − 5)200
F200 = √
2200 5
= 280, 571, 172, 992, 510, 140, 037, 611, 932, 413, 038, 677, 189, 525

Q4. The Pentanacci sequence begins

0, 0, 0, 0, 1,
and thereafter each term is the sum of the preceding five terms. Write down the first
twenty pentanacci numbers.

0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 31, 61, 120, 236, 464, 912, 1793, 3525, 6930, 13624

1
Q5. We’ve seen that the ratio of successive Fibonacci numbers gets closer and closer to the
golden ratio. What can you say about the ratio of successive pentanacci numbers?

Let’s check some of these ratios to see if we can guess at an answer. We have
1
= 1
1
2
= 2
1
4
= 2
2
8
= 2
4
16
= 2
8
31
= 1.9375
16
61
= 1.967741935
31
120
= 1.967213115
61
236
= 1.966666667
120

It looks like the ratios are converging to (getting closer and closer to) a number
approximately equal to 1.9667. In fact they are converging to one of the solutions
of
1
x+ − 2 = 0.
x5