Nature follows a number pattern called Fibonacci

What do pine cones and paintings have in common? A 13th century Italian mathematician named Leonardo of Pisa.Better known by his pen name, Fibonacci, he came up with a number sequence that keeps popping up throughout the plant kingdom, and the art world too.

A fibonacci sequence is simple enough to generate: Starting with the number one, you merely add the previous two numbers in the sequence to generate the next one. So the sequence, early on, is 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 and so on.

NUMBERS AND PLANTS

To see how it works in nature, go outside and find an intact pine cone (or any other cone). Look carefully and you’ll notice that the bracts that make up the cone are arranged in a spiral. Actually two spirals, running in opposite directions, with one rising steeply and the other gradually from the cone’s base to its tip.

Count the number of spirals in each direction a job made easier by dabbing the bracts along one line of each spiral with a colored marker. The number of spirals in either direction is a fibonacci number.

I just counted 5 parallel spirals going in one direction and 8 parallel spirals going in the opposite direction on a Norway spruce cone.Or you might examine a pineapple. Focus on one of the hexagonal scales near the fruit’s midriff and you can pick out three spirals, each aligned to a different pair of opposing sides of the hexagon. One set rises gradually, another moderately and the third steeply. Count the number of spirals and you’ll find eight gradual, 13 moderate and 21 steeply rising ones. Fibonacci numbers again.

Scales and bracts are modified leaves, and the spiral arrangements in pine cones and pineapples reflect the spiral growth habit of stems. To confirm this, bring in a leafless stem from some tree or shrub and look at its buds, where leaves were attached.

The buds range up the stem in a spiral pattern, which kept each leaf out of the shadow of leaves just above it. The amount of spiraling varies from plant to plant, with new leaves developing in some fraction _ such as 2/5, 3/5, 3/8 or 8/13 _ of a spiral. Eureka, the numbers in those fractions are fibonacci numbers!

You can determine the fraction on your dormant stem by finding a bud directly above another one, then counting the number of full circles the stem went through to get there while generating buds in between.

So if the stems made three full circles to get a bud back where it started and generated eight buds getting there, the fraction is 3/8, with each bud 3/8 of a turn off its neighbor upstairs or downstairs. Different plants have favored fractions, but they evidently don’t read the books because I just computed fractions of 1/3 and 3/8 on a single apple stem, which is supposed to have a fraction of 2/5. All are fractions with fibonacci numbers, at least.

NUMBERS AND ART

I haven’t forgotten about the artists. It turns out there are certain proportions we humans generally find pleasing: the rectangular proportions of a painting, for example, or the placement of a focal point in a painting.

In a painting, for example, the Golden Cut states that the ratio of the distance of the focal point from the closer side to the farther side of a painting is the same as the ratio of the distance from the farther side to the painting’s whole width. A pleasing ratio, it turns out, is 0.618… or, if you want to use the inverse, 1.618… . Enter fibonacci: Divide any fibonacci number by the fibonacci number before or after it and you get 0.618… or 1.618…, not exactly at first, but closer and closer the higher the fibonacci number you start with. Try it.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/nature-follows-a-number-pattern-called-fibonacci/1076960/0

Asteroid to whizz past Earth tomorrow night

An asteroid, about half the size of a football field, will pass in close proximity to Earth, closer than the orbits of some geosynchronous satellites, tomorrow night.

The asteroid called “2012 DA14” will flyby earth at a distance of 27,700 km on February 16 at 00:10 AM, Secretary and Director of Planetary Society of India N Sri Raghunandan Kumar said.

The 45-metre wide space rock is moving at a speed of 7.8 km/sec. This is the closest approach by any asteroid in recorded history to buzz past our planet, NASA scientists have said. This asteroid was discovered on February 23, 2012 in Spain.

It will pass within the moon’s distance from Earth and closer than the orbits of some geosynchronous satellites, which provide weather data and telecommunications. However, the space rock poses no danger of impacting the Earth.

The next time it will have closest approach to Earth on February 15, 2019 when it be at 6,91,64,078 km. The last time it came close was on 16th February 2012 and was at 26,06,840 km. On the day of its closest approach, it will shine at 8 Magnitude. The space rock is not visible to the naked eye but can be spotted with the help of telescopes.

The best viewing location for the closest approach will be Indonesia. Eastern Europe, Asia and Australia are also well situated to see the asteroid, he said. Meanwhile, another space rock called “Asteroid 1999 YK5” will flyby Earth at distance of 1,88,87,632 km on February 15 at 3.48 PM. Its travelling at the rate of 20 km/sec.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/asteroid-to-whizz-past-earth-tomorrow-night/1074181/

Light bulb shining after an incredible 130 years

While most modern light bulbs barely last a year, a bulb in UK is still glowing after an amazing 130 years, making it one of the oldest in the world.

The bulb, dating from 1883, was clearly built to last with six internal filaments which wobble when in use.

It continued to give good service throughout two world wars, shining well into the new millennium, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported.

The bulb first belonged to the late Florence Crook who once took it to school to dazzle her classmates. It then passed down to her son Kenneth, in Morecambe, Lancshire and is still in use by his widow Beth, 79, at their home.

“It’s a real talking point. There is no substitute for craftsmanship. The new eco bulbs take all week to warm up and hardly give off any light,” Beth told the ‘Daily Express’.

The bulb, marked EDISWAN, has the number 200-32:B.56 on the glass. The UK’s previously oldest working bulb surfaced after 113 years continuous use in Margate, Kent, in 2008.

Ediswan was a collaboration between the British Physicist Sir Joseph Swan and US scientist Thomas Alva Edison, both of whom are independently credited with the invention of the light bulb in 1879.

Swan’s break through was to use a vacuum which meant there was very little oxygen inside the bulb so the filament to glow white-hot without catching fire.

It rolled of the production line as Queen Victoria was beginning her 64th year on the throne and William Gladstone was the UK Prime Minister, the report said.

According to the Guinness Book of Records the world’s oldest light bulb in continuous use has been burning for 109 years and holds pride of place in Fire Station 6, in Livermore, northern California.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/light-bulb-shining-after-an-incredible-130-years/1073013/0

‘Ozone thinning has changed ocean circulation’

A hole in the Antarctic ozone layer has changed the way waters in the southern oceans mix, which scientists say could impact global climate change.

The situation has the potential to alter the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, scientist say.

In a study, published in the journal Science, Darryn W Waugh and his team show that subtropical intermediate waters in the southern oceans have become “younger” as the upwelling, circumpolar waters have gotten “older” – changes that are consistent with the fact that surface winds have strengthened as the ozone layer has thinned.

“This may sound entirely academic, but believe me, it’s not,” said Waugh, of the Morton K Blaustein Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins’ Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.

“This matters because the southern oceans play an important role in the uptake of heat and carbon dioxide, so any changes in southern ocean circulation have the potential to change the global climate,” Waugh said in a statement.

Researchers used measurements taken from the early 1990s to the mid-to-late 2000s of the amount of a chemical compound known as “chlorofluorocarbon-12,” or CFC-12, in the southern oceans.

CFC-12 was first produced commercially in the 1930s and its concentration in the atmosphere increased rapidly until the 1990s when it was phased out by the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer.

Researchers were able to infer changes in how rapidly surface waters have mixed into the depths of the southern oceans.

Because they knew that concentrations of CFCs at the ocean surface increased in tandem with those in the atmosphere, they were able to surmise that the higher the concentration of CFC-12 deeper in the ocean, the more recently those waters were at the surface.

The inferred age changes – “younger” in the subtropics, “older” nearer the South Pole – are consistent with the observed intensification of surface westerly winds, which have occurred primarily because of the Antarctic ozone hole, suggesting that stratospheric ozone depletion is the primary cause of the changes in ocean ventilation.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ozone-thinning-has-changed-ocean-circulation/1067962/0