The fabulous Fibonacci flower formula

You probably know that nature is crawling with the Fibonacci numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc. But have you ever seen a simple explanation for this phenomenon? This video is the result of my own quest to distill a really accessible explanation from existing research.

Enjoy :)

In the last video on continued fractions I mentioned that part of the explanation involves the golden ratio and the fact that this number is the most irrational number. I'll talk about this in a follow-up video. If you cannot wait check out this website: http://www.maths.surrey.ac.uk/hosted-sites/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibnat2.html
Also check out the following video produced as part of research by Douady and Couder about how simple displacement at the center of a plant gives rise to Fibonacci numbers of spirals
https://youtu.be/U-at-y3MicE
The paper itself can be found here https://www.math.ntnu.no/~jarlet/Douady96.pdf
Another very interesting approach by Levitov involves a magnetic cactus, vortices in superconductors and the fabulous Farey numbers: http://www.ams.org/samplings/feature-column/fcarc-phyllotaxis#2

Nächste Episode

S02E12 - Ramanujan's infinite root and its crazy cousins