Monday, March 17, 2014

Taking Fibonacci Back to Italy

The Fibonacci sequence has a huge number of instances in the natural world, from pineapples to pinecones. There is, however, a deeper pattern that may have foregone notice until now. Let's take a look at the first dozen numbers in the sequence:
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89

Here's the real question: what is the second number to be equal to its place in the sequence minus one? The answer,  of course, is five, being sixth in the sequence. Now take this number of numbers starting with the number five, subtracting one from each number and putting them, in order, into one number. The resulting figure is:
47122033

Now some background. The website www.openstreetmap.org hosts a detailed map of the world's streets, labeling intersections, or nodes, with multi-digit ID numbers. Is it any coincidence that node #47122033 refers to an intersection in a small Italian town halfway between Florence and Ravenna?

Exactly.

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