![]() She is a former news editor at ABC Science and science correspondent for ABC Gardening Australia magazine, and has degrees in biochemistry and journalism.As it turns out, the numbers in the Fibonacci sequence appear in nature very frequently. For that you need to grab a marker pen and a pair of tweezers, then follow the instructions in this video:įact sheet: sunflowers (ABC Gardening Australia)Ībout the author Anna Evangeli writes about the science of gardening at her award winning blog The Geeky Gardener. It's not obvious just by looking at a sunflower head whether you have a Fibonacci sunflower, a Lucas sunflower or a sunflower with another pattern. ![]() ^ to top What type of sunflower do I have? If it wasn't for Turing, the so-called father of computer science, there would be no computers to drive that sunflower science, or computers to read about it. Whether it's the mathematics of sunflower patterns or the plant biology behind it that interests you most, you can thank Turing for both. Some had spirals but no Fibonacci numbers. ![]() The project analysed data from 557 sunflowers from seven countries around the world and found 458 with Fibonacci spirals, 33 with Lucas spirals and 26 with double Fibonacci sequences. The idea was to continue with Turing's work, hence the name of this citizen science project - Turing's Sunflowers. The question for researchers today is to figure out why some sunflowers are arranged one way and not another.įor that, you need a large collection of sunflowers, and one UK group decided to rope in the public - people growing sunflowers in their own backyards and schools - to help gather enough data. Some sunflowers follow the lesser known Lucas series, which starts off with 2 and 1, then is the sum of the previous two numbers: 2, 1, 3, 4, 7, 11 etc. It would be easy to end the story there, to accept that plant hormones drive Fibonacci patterns. The result is the familiar spiralling pattern seen in sunflowers - which also happens to be the most efficient way of packing seeds into the flower head to maximise access to light and nutrients, providing an evolutionary advantage. ![]() US researchers used mathematical modelling to show that auxin is transported around the flower head in Fibonacci spirals that matched where the seeds grew - they suggest that where auxin flows, seeds grow. Turing didn't finish his Fibonacci research before he died in 1954.ĭecades later, research in the journal Physical Review Letters has shown that the patterns we see in sunflowers are created by the plant hormone auxin. You'll also find them in cauliflower florets, echinacea petals, pine cone spirals, leaves on stems and many other places. Turing was trying to explain why the number of clockwise and anticlockwise seed spirals in a sunflower head followed numbers in the Fibonacci series - 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 etc - where each number is the sum of the previous two.įibonacci numbers and patterns don't just crop up in sunflowers. But according to manuscripts available at the Turing Digital Archive, he also applied his analytical skills to sunflowers. Turing was better known for breaking enemy codes during World War 2 and his pioneering work in computer science. It's an area that has fascinated many researchers, including 20th century UK mathematician Alan Turing. Mathematicians use mathematical models to explain patterns in nature - in this case how, and why, sunflower seeds are arranged in spirals. Sunflower seeds mean different things to different people - something to eat, something to plant or, if you're a mathematician, something to count. Now's a good time to collect their seeds. There they stand, taller than the garden fence, with vibrant yellow heads screaming summer and 'look at me'.īut as summer turns to autumn, their heavy heads dry and droop. ![]()
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