Article 2 (Oct 2019): Fibonacci!

Here is an idea by 12th century mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa that even those uncertain about math can understand.  Although it seems simple, the sequence of numbers he identified to Western mathematicians is used even today in computer algorithms.
              
Try to identify what is happening in this series of numbers: (0), 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, etc.
              
An entire journal is dedicated to this sequence of numbers and the sequence appears today in search techniques, data structures, and distributed systems.  If those applications sound complicated, the sequence also appears in nature: the arrangement of leaves on a stem can follow this sequence.  An artichoke flowering pattern does, too. Even the arrangement of a pine cone's bracts follows this sequence.
              
In the East, in India for example, the Fibonacci sequence was identified and used as early as 450 BC and its pattern is found in the meter and verse in Sanskrit.
              
Here's the answer to the sequence, if you haven't yet figured it out: Each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. 1=0+1, 2=1+1, 3=2+1, 5=3+2, etc.
              
In honor of the sequence, Nov. 23 has been named Fibonacci Day, written 1123 ... you see the significance!