The Hypnotic Patterns of Sunflowers(Fibnoacci Series)

 

The Hypnotic Patterns of Sunflowers

The pattern of seeds within a sunflower follows the Fibonacci sequence, or 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144.. If you remember back to math class, each number in the sequence is the sum of the previous two numbers. In sunflowers, the spirals you see in the center are generated from this sequence -- there are two series of curves winding in opposite directions, starting at the center and stretching out to the petals, with each seed sitting at a certain angle from the neighboring seeds to create the spiral.

According to PopMath: "In order to optimize the filling [of the seeds in the flower's center], it is necessary to choose the most irrational number there is, that is to say, the one the least well approximated by a fraction. This number is exactly the golden mean. The corresponding angle, the golden angle, is 137.5 degrees...This angle has to be chosen very precisely: variations of 1/10 of a degree destroy completely the optimization. When the angle is exactly the golden mean, and only this one, two families of spirals (one in each direction) are then visible: their numbers correspond to the numerator and denominator of one of the fractions which approximates the golden mean : 2/3, 3/5, 5/8, 8/13, 13/21, etc."


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