Plant
Spirals:
An Introduction to the Exhibit |
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Come and explore the world of Fibonacci numbers, the Golden Mean, spirals under the microscope, the universe of spiral lattices and more. The exhibit presents the biology of plant spiral pattern formation and introduces a mathematical model that offers an explanation for the predominance of the Fibonacci numbers in these spirals. |
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| Movies of the exhibit | Virtual Tour of Exhibit | |||||
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In
this Bellis perennis, there are 21 spirals going in one direction
and 34 in the other. |
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The
spirals visible in plants usually come in two sets winding in opposite
directions.The numbers of spirals are most often two consecutive
Fibonacci numbers: 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 . . . |
Check
the Phyllotaxis website at Smith College 
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Apex of Norway
spruce (R. Rutishauser, U. Zurich)
Spiral lattice