Wednesday Wisdom

There is order to the universe

Who

Leonardo Bonacci, Leonardo of Pisa, or Leonardo Bigollo Pisano ('Leonardo the Traveller from Pisa'[ was an Italian mathematician from The Republic of Pisa. He is considered to be the most talented Western mathematician of the Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) and was critical in introducing Arabic numbers to the west. He is better known simply as Fibonacci.

What?

In 1202 Fibonacci wrote a book called "Liber AbaciIn" which had numerous math problems and was a way of introducing the 10-digit numerical system. Finding Roman numeral systems difficult and archaic for bookkeeping, his book created a stir in Europe which then led to a growth in banking and commerce by popularizing the 10-digit system.

Among Fibonacci's many math problems, he solved how many rabbits one would have in a year if one began with male and female adult rabbits. In order to explain rabbit population growth, Fibonacci used a recursive equation based on math and logic. A recursive equation provides a sequence and answer by determining each number based on the previous number.

The Fibonacci sequence equates to each number being the sum of the previous two numbers. It looks like this; 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181.......: This sequence goes on to infinity and might seem unremarkable, but it explains how growth becomes exponential while also bringing the aesthetics of symmetry.

German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630 CE) while exploring Fibonacci numbers discovered an amazing insight. Kepler is best known for developing laws of planetary motion and noticed a pattern, in which the ratio of consecutive Fibonacci numbers approaches the Golden or Divine Ratio. Each number in the sequence is proportionately higher than the last number by 1.618033... , which is the golden ratio or expressed in Greek as Phi. Since ancient Greece, the use of The Golden Ratio had been known in geometry and architecture. What Kepler shows is the Fibonacci sequence and the Golden Ratio are essentially the same mathematical formulation and where there seems to be chaos in the Universe there is actual order.

Johannes Kepler wrote that "the image of man and woman stems from the divine proportion. In my opinion, the propagation of plants and the progenitive acts of animals are in the same ratio"

2020 Why should you care?

The golden ratio is not only important in geometry but its pattern is seen in many natural phenomena, for example in the smallest nautilus, pine combs, flowers, and even in the shape of the largest galaxies. The sequence also has directly connected with the golden ratio and is used throughout history in many works of art such as the Mona Lisa and Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, The Fibonacci sequence can even be heard in music where any octave has 13 notes, and scale is comprised of 8 notes. The Fibonacci number sequence describes how things grow, and also how they decay. It can predict the increase in the population of a colony of rabbits, as well as a colony of bacteria. Fibonacci numbers are used to predict the behavior of financial assets, such as stock market indexes, and are widely used in financial markets.

Most importantly, finding patterns and sequence is intrinsic to how humanity thinks and finds beauty and order.

This series, though invented in the twelfth century, is useful and still presents avenues for sophisticated research. The significance of the Fibonacci number sequence is that it describes the behavior of many natural systems with an elegant simplicity that opens a world of complex abstract thought. There is still debate about whether the golden ratio is a key to understanding the universe or just human bias in finding patterns, but the intersection of math and logic has always been part of understanding the human condition and the world.

What we know is that numbers give us a way of finding symmetry, and with symmetry, the philosophies of Logic* and Aesthetics* can be explained.

And now you know: Philosophy is the art of thinking, the building block of progress that shapes critical thinking across economics, ethics, religion, and science.

*Logic and Aesthetics definitions below: