Knowledge of the Fibonacci sequence was expressed as early as Pingala ( c. 450 BC–200 BC). Counting the different patterns of successive L and S with a given total duration results in the Fibonacci numbers: the number of patterns of duration m units is F m+1. In the Sanskrit poetic tradition, there was interest in enumerating all patterns of long (L) syllables of 2 units duration, juxtaposed with short (S) syllables of 1 unit duration.

The Fibonacci sequence appears in Indian mathematics, in connection with Sanskrit prosody. Eight ( F 6) end with a short syllable and five ( F 5) end with a long syllable. See also: Golden ratio § History Thirteen ( F 7) ways of arranging long and short syllables in a cadence of length six. The Fibonacci numbers may be defined by the recurrence relation Fibonacci numbers are also closely related to Lucas numbers, which obey the same recurrence relation and with the Fibonacci numbers form a complementary pair of Lucas sequences.ĭefinition The Fibonacci spiral: an approximation of the golden spiral created by drawing circular arcs connecting the opposite corners of squares in the Fibonacci tiling (see preceding image) They also appear in biological settings, such as branching in trees, the arrangement of leaves on a stem, the fruit sprouts of a pineapple, the flowering of an artichoke, and the arrangement of a pine cone's bracts, though they do not occur in all species.įibonacci numbers are also strongly related to the golden ratio: Binet's formula expresses the nth Fibonacci number in terms of n and the golden ratio, and implies that the ratio of two consecutive Fibonacci numbers tends to the golden ratio as n increases. 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. įibonacci numbers appear unexpectedly often in mathematics, so much so that there is an entire journal dedicated to their study, the Fibonacci Quarterly. They are named after the Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, also known as Fibonacci, who introduced the sequence to Western European mathematics in his 1202 book Liber Abaci.

The Fibonacci numbers were first described in Indian mathematics as early as 200 BC in work by Pingala on enumerating possible patterns of Sanskrit poetry formed from syllables of two lengths. The sequence commonly starts from 0 and 1, although some authors start the sequence from 1 and 1 or sometimes (as did Fibonacci) from 1 and 2. Numbers that are part of the Fibonacci sequence are known as Fibonacci numbers, commonly denoted F n. In mathematics, the Fibonacci sequence is a sequence in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. A tiling with squares whose side lengths are successive Fibonacci numbers: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 and 21 For the chamber ensemble, see Fibonacci Sequence (ensemble).

Fibonacci sequences in nature