crazymalc.co.nz - Home Page of Malcolm Trevena

The Fibonacci Series

The Fibonacci series of numbers is very cool. The first two numbers are 1 and 2. The n^th number is the sum of the n^th - 1 number and n^th -2 number.

So, the start of the series looks like this:

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, ...

One cool property of the series is that n^th number divided by the n^th - 1 number, approaches the Golden Ratio as n approaches infinity. The Golden Ratio is like pi, it just goes on and on. It is approximately equal to 1.6180.

The Golden Ratio is found all throughout nature. It is the ratio of the length from your shoulder to your fingertips, to the length from your elbow to your fingertips.

It is used in architecture as well because it looks just right.

This rectangle, for example, looks too fat,

... and this rectangle looks too skinny,

... while this rectangle looks just right. It is neither too skinny nor too fat.

The last rectangle has the Golden Ratio as this ratio between its height and width.

Math is fun kids!

Questions? Comments? Try contacting me.
Wanna receive an email whenever this site gets updated? Click here.

(c) 2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to link to this page. Heck, you can even copy stuff from here if you want. Just make sure you sight me as a reference.