PRACTICE SET 1

MATHEMATICS IN THE MODERN WORLD

Fibonacci numbers:

4. Suppose a newly-born pair of rabbits, one male and one female, are put in a
field. Rabbits are able to mate at the age of one month so that at the end of its
second month a female can produce another pair of rabbits. Suppose that our
rabbits never die and that the female always produces one new pair (one male,
one female) every month from the second month on. How many pairs will there
be in one year?
In Fibonacci series, a number is added to the preceding number, for example, in
the first month, there is a pair of rabbit, at the end of the month, there is still one
pair of rabbit. At the start of the second month, the original female rabbit
produces another pair, making it two pairs. At the end of the second month, the
second female rabbit produces a pair as rabbits produce a pair when it reaches a
month of age. If we add the preceding numbers and reach the one-year mark, we
will have a total of 233 pair of rabbits.

5. Henry Dudeny, an English puzzle book author in the early 1900s, came up with
the following simplified version of Fibonacci’s logic: If a cow produces its first
female calf at age two years and produces another female calf every year after
that, how many female calves are there after five years if we start with one
newborn female calf and no calves die?
If we follow the Fibonacci sequence, when we reach the 5 th year mark, there will
be 8 female calves in total.

6. There are two types of female honeybees: workers, which produce no eggs, and
the queen, which produces eggs. Drone bees are males that are produced from
the queen’s unfertilized eggs. A drone’s mother is the queen that laid the egg.
But a drone has no father, because the egg was never fertilized. Worker females
and queen females are produced from the queen’s fertilized eggs. So each type
of female has a father as well as a mother, because the female eggs were
fertilized. Describe how the numbers of ancestors of a drone honeybee are
Fibonacci numbers.
Drone bees are produced by only one parent, which is the female queen bee,
however a female queen bee have both male and female bee parents, making
the drone bee’s grandparents, the female grandparent of the drone bee was
produced from another pair of male and female bee, and it follows the Fibonacci
series.
 7. Binet’s Formula states that the nth Fibonacci number is (a) Use
Binet’s Formula to find the 29th and 30th Fibonacci numbers. (b) Use the results
of part (a) to find the 31st Fibonacci number.

Golden Ratio:

8. The 15th and 16th Fibonacci numbers are 610 and 987, respectively. Divide the
larger of these numbers by the smaller. What do you observe?
I have divided 987 and 610, the quotient is approximately equal to 1.61803. I
have also divided 16 and 15, the quotient is approximately equal to 1.06666. I
have observed that the Fibonacci numbers and their values, when divided by the
lower value, they have almost the same answers.

9. The picture below is the façade of the Parthenon, a former temple on the
Athenian Acropolis, Greece, dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the people
of Athens considered their patron. Construction began in 447 BC when the
Athenian Empire was at the peak of its power. Today's claim is that the facade of
the Parthenon fits in a golden rectangle. Study carefully the picture and prove the
claim by describing how the golden ratio was applied?
I have observed that the Parthenon follows the golden ratio. The height of the
said building, from the base to the top of the roof, is a golden ratio to its width at
 the end of the structure. I have also found an article which stated that Phidias,
the director of the construction of the Parthenon, used the golden ratio in his
works and sculpture. The exterior dimensions of the structure form a perfect
golden rectangle.

10. The British Independent Movie Critics hailed Liza Soberano the Most Beautiful
Face of 2017. Examine her picture below and determine how many golden ratios
do you think might appear in her beautiful face?
I have observed that her face is symmetrical, therefore she has a golden ratio, if I
were to estimate the number of golden ratios she has on her face, maybe about
7.

11. The spiraling shapes in cauliflower, artichoke, and sunflower florets share a
remarkable feature: The numbers of clockwise and counterclockwise spirals are
consecutive Fibonacci numbers. Determine the number of clockwise and
counterclockwise spirals of the sunflower florets below.
I believe that there are about 21 spiral arms curving clockwise and there are
about 34 spiral arms curving counter-clockwise.

12. In the Fibonacci Sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377,
610, 987, … which of these numbers are divisible by 2? 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21,
34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, … The answer is every third number, and 2
is the third Fibonacci number. How about the ones divisible by 3? 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8,
13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, … The answer is every fourth
number, and 3 is the fourth Fibonacci number. Could these be just a
coincidence? Examine if this pattern goes on forever.
This is not a coincidence, the Fibonacci series is an ordered systematic ratio,
therefore, if the pattern is that the numbers are divisible by two or three every
third and fourth number, it continues up until the largest of numbers and even
infinity.

13. The golden triangle, sometimes also called the sublime triangle, is an isosceles
triangle such that the ratio of the hypotenuse a to base b is equal to the golden
ratio, a/b = ϕ. What is the measure of the vertex angle of the triangle?
An isosceles triangle has two equal sides and one base. All triangle has a total
angle of 180°.The angles of these sides and the base of an isosceles triangle is
equivalent to 45°. Therefore, in order to find the vertex angle, you add the angles
of the two sides and base then you subtract it to 180°. If 45+45=90, subtract 90
from 180. Then 180-90=90. Therefore, the vertex angle is 90°.
14. The term phyllotaxis means "leaf arrangement" in Greek and was coined in 1754
by Charles Bonnet, a Swiss naturalist. In the 1830s, a pair of scientist brothers
found that each new leaf on a plant stem is positioned at a certain angle to the
previous one and that this angle is constant between leaves. That is, if you look
down from above on the plant and measure the angle formed between a line
drawn from the stem to the leaf and a corresponding line for the next leaf, you
will find that there is generally a fixed angle, called the divergence angle. What is
the measurement of this angle?
The measurement of the divergence angle found in a spiral of a leaf arrangement
or also called phyllotaxis, is 137.5° which is also considered to be the golden
angle.

15. Each scale on the pineapple is a hexagon and is part of three different spirals
along the rind. In the image below, these spirals are the gently-sloping spirals
(left), steeper spirals (middle), and very steep spirals. All of these are Fibonacci
numbers of increasing steepness on their surface. Determine the number of each
of these spirals.
The number of spirals on the gently-sloping spirals which is the left one has 8
spirals. The steeper spiral which is the middle one, have 13 spirals. Lastly, the
steepest of the spirals have a total of 21 spirals. All of these are Fibonacci
numbers.