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Feb. 28, 2006
Contact: Gordon Ovenshine: 724-738-4854;
gordon.ovenshine@sru.edu
SRU MATH STUDENTS TO STUDY FIBONACCI SEQUENCE, A
KEY PART OF “THE DaVINCI
CODE”
SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa.
–Just as mathematicians nationwide celebrate Pi Day
once a year, math students at Slippery Rock University will devote
March 8 to Leonardo of Pisa’s famous “Fibonacci
Sequence,” an 800-year old sequencing of numbers from the man
that brought the decimal system to Europe.
Students will study
the relationship between the Fibonacci Sequence and the Golden
Ratio, which featured prominently in “The DaVinci
Code.” Like Pi Day, students will compete in a trivia
contest, and the winner will have the opportunity to throw a pie at
the math professor of his or her choice.
Leonardo of Pisa,
known as Fibonacci, developed the following story problem about
rabbits to illustrate sums. “Beginning with a single pair of rabbits, if every
month each productive pair bears a new pair, which becomes
productive when they are 1 month old, how many rabbits will there
be after n (variable) months?
“This
problem generates the sequence of numbers called the Fibonacci
Sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8,… where each number is the sum of
the previous two,” said SRU’s Robert Vallin, associate
professor of mathematics. “We’re looking for a solution
after any number of months, so the answers depend on the
variable.”
The day will
include two talks. Stacey Reynolds, an SRU math major from
Pittsburgh, will discuss the relationship between the Fibonacci
Sequence and the Golden Ratio. The second speaker, James Sellers, a
professor of math at Penn State University, will talk about further
mathematical aspects of the sequence.
“The
event starts at 3:58 p.m, rather than 4, because 3, 5 and 8 appear
in the sequence order while 4 does not,” Vallin
said.
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