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Pineapple from Birds and nature.

Smithsonian Libraries and Archives

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Object Details

Book Title
Birds and nature.
Caption
Pineapple.
Educational Notes
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34…This may seem like a random string of numbers, but like with this pineapple, there’s more than meets the eye! These numbers are the beginning of a sequence of numbers called the Fibonacci Sequence after Italian mathematician, Leonardo Fibonacci, who described these numbers in his book Liber Abaci in 1202. You might wonder what a bunch of numbers have to do with a pineapple—quite a bit, actually! The pattern of this pineapple is a physical representation of how the Fibonacci Sequence works. Each number in the sequence is determined by the two numbers before it. So, 0+1=1, 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5, 3+5=8, 5+8=13, and on and on to numbers that can’t even be counted to! If you were to block out these equations in a grid and draw a spiral starting in the middle and work your way out, you would end up drawing the same spiral found in the formation of this pineapple. This spiral is known as the Golden Spiral and can be found in many other places in nature such as the flowering of an artichoke.
1899
Publication Date
1899
Image ID
SIL-39088009843384_birdsnature531899chic_0023
Catalog ID
422539
Rights
No Copyright - United States
Type
Photographic prints
Publication Place
Chicago (Ill.)
Publisher
 A.W. Mumford
See more items in
See Wonder
Smithsonian Libraries
Topic
Math and Measurement
Math
Counting
Number sequence
Liber Abaci
Leonardo Fibonacci
Fibonacci Sequence
Seashell
Golden Spiral
Infinite
Pineapple
Language
English
Record ID
silgoi_103964
Metadata Usage (text)
CC0
No Copyright - United States
There are restrictions for re-using this image. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Terms of Use page .
No Copyright - United States
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