Question
A math book I was reading said that the Fibonacci sequence is applicable to certain things in nature. There was a picture of a pinecone in the book. Do pinecones have anything to do with Fibonacci numbers?
Answer
The Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.) in which each term, after the second term, is the sum of the preceding two terms. In the study of botany, these numbers have proved useful in describing the positioning of leaves around plant stems, the spiral patterns in sunflower heads, and the scales of pinecones, to name but a few examples.
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