Afterword by Herbert A. Hauptman, Nobel Laureate
"This is a wonderful introduction...You may end up amazed and incredulous..."
LEON M. LEDERMAN, Nobel Laureate
"It is absolutely amazing how this series of numbers, harmlessly stumbled upon 800 years ago, is found in so many fields outside of mathematics. This book introduces the Fibonacci numbers in a highly intelligible fashion - first their history, and then exhibiting their incredible numerical, geometric and algebraic relationships. All this is done with the general readership in mind. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to experience the power and beauty of mathematics."
STANLEY H. KAPLAN
Founder of the Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Center
"Brilliant, entertaining, eye-opening. And you thought The Da Vinci Code was provocative. Wait until you read this book about this underlying code or pattern in reality."
DR. GREGORY H. WILLIAMS
President of the City College of New York
"The Fibonacci numbers are popping up everywhere - from best sellers to the big screen. This book goes way beyond scratching the surface to uncover some of the amazing ways these numbers appear in art, history and our culture."
CATHY SEELEY
Past President of the National Council
of Teachers of Mathematics
The most ubiquitous, and perhaps the most intriguing, number pattern in mathematics is the Fibonacci sequence. In this simple pattern beginning with two ones, each succeeding number is the sum of the two numbers immediately preceding it (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, ad infinitum). Far from being just a curiosity, this sequence recurs in structures found throughout nature — from the arrangement of whorls on a pinecone to the branches of certain plant stems. All of which is astounding evidence for the deep mathematical basis of the natural world.
With admirable clarity, math educators Alfred Posamentier and Ingmar Lehmann take us on a fascinating tour of the many ramifications of the Fibonacci numbers. The authors begin with a brief history of their distinguished Italian discoverer, who, among other accomplishments, was responsible for popularizing the use of Arabic numerals in the West. Turning to botany, the authors demonstrate, through illustrative diagrams, the unbelievable connections between Fibonacci numbers and natural forms (pineapples, sunflowers, and daisies are just a few examples). In art, architecture, the stock market, and other areas of society and culture, they point out numerous examples of the Fibonacci sequence as well as its derivative, the “golden ratio.” And of course in mathematics, as the authors amply demonstrate, there are almost boundless applications in probability, number theory, geometry, algebra, and Pascal’s triangle, to name a few.
Accessible and appealing to even the most math-phobic individual, this fun and enlightening book allows the reader to appreciate the elegance of mathematics and its amazing applications in both natural and cultural settings.
Book Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 385
ISBN: 1-59102-475-7
Shipping Weight: 1lbs
Author Bio:
Alfred S. Posamentier, Ph.D. (New York, NY), is dean of the School of Education and professor of mathematics education at The City College of the City University of New York. He has published more than 40 books in the area of mathematics and mathematics education, including The Fabulous Fibonacci Numbers, Pi: A Biography of the World’s Most Mysterious Number, and Math Charmers: Tantalizing Tidbits for the Mind..
Ingmar Lehmann, Ph.D. (Berlin, Germany), is a mathematics educator at Humboldt University in Berlin and is the coauthor of
The Fabulous Fibonacci Numbers and
Pi: A Biography of the World’s Most Mysterious Number.
