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 ...

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 ...

Number theory, the study of the properties of positive integers, is perhaps the purest form of mathematics. At first sight, it may seem far too abstract to apply to the natural world. In fact, the ...

This undated photo shows a spruce cone with a marked fibonacci number sequence. A numbers sequence thought up by the 13th century Italian mathematician known as Fibonacci plays out in plants, from ...

A spruce cone is marked to highlight its fibonacci number sequence. That sequence, explained by 13th century Italian mathematician Fibonacci, plays out in plants — from pine cones to pineapples — and ...