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Originally this was a problem that he investigated (in the year 1202) to see how fast rabbits would breed in ideal circumstances. This was assuming that none of the rabbits died, and that each pair of rabbits did not give birth to more than one pair of rabbits each month. The picture below shows a pair
of rabbits that are born and don't mature until after the first month. After
the first month they give birth to a pair of rabbits which don't mature until
after the first month. It repeats this pattern continuously. If you look
at the numbers at the right in the chart, it shows the number of rabbits
that are alive at the time. These numbers are the Fibonacci Sequence. This
is how he discovered the sequence.
When you look at the sequence and pick a number you will notice it is composed of the previous two numbers added together. 1 + 1 = 2 ... 1 + 2 = 3... 2 + 3 = 5 and so on. After this, more discoveries were made about how applicable this pattern is. It was discovered that this pattern was found throughout nature and that it is a very pleasing pattern to humans in many different ways. One important number that was
found as a result of the Fibonacci sequence is 1.61803. This number
is called Phi, the Golden Ratio, and the Divine Number, it is the limit
of the ratio of two consecutive Fibonacci numbers. Rationally represented
it is (1+sqrt5)/2, which is one of the roots of the equation X^2=X-1. It
is also used to construct the Golden Rectangle. This is a pretty special
number! There will be a full discussion later about how this number
is connected to nature and how we humans use it in our creations.
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