Fibonacci numbers - The Fingerprint of God

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Ancalagon
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14 Sep 2012, 9:15 am

Vexcalibur wrote:

A lot of mundane things are beautiful.

That seems like a fairly unusual way to use the word 'mundane'.

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Fibonacci numbers are horribly overrated.

Feel free to show this (as opposed to merely stating it) anytime.

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They are beautiful, but really, in maths beautiful is the norm.

I'm not contesting that.

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That's exactly the same the same logic that is allowed to use the matrix multiplication algorithm Your claim of these formulas being more efficient than matrixes is kind of unfounded considering they are both doing the same :/

If you calculate with matrices, you keep track of (and must calculate) one excess variable and one duplicate -- as I explained last time. If you optimize that out, you aren't really doing matrix multiplication anymore.

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DC
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14 Sep 2012, 9:26 am

ruveyn wrote:

Ancalagon wrote:

For a theist (at least the flavor that I happen to be), God is the source of all truth and beauty. I probably wouldn't have put it as "the Fibonacci numbers are godly", but they are beautiful and true, so I think describing them as like 'fingerprints of God' (as in the thread title) is reasonable.

Mathematical objects such as the Fibonacci numbers are beautiful. But they are as man made as portraits by Rembrant. Both are human artifacts, both are aesthetically appealing.

ruveyn

Just in case you didn't realise this fibonacci 'finger print of god' stuff is the latest lame idea from the creationists to disprove evolution and prove irreducible complexity after getting their butts kicked all over the court with arguments about the human eye or bacterial flagella.

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14 Sep 2012, 10:19 am

DC wrote:

Rev. Paley's argument from design is like Vampires and Zombies. It just won't stay dead.

ruveyn

Vexcalibur
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14 Sep 2012, 11:14 am

YippySkippy wrote:

Not sure about Vex's use of the word "mundane".

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mundane

First definition.

Mathy sequences are an "earthly" thing. Like a Rembrandt painting or physics.

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Feel free to show this (as opposed to merely stating it) anytime.

Like I said, many of their "magical properties" come from fibonacci being a linear recurrence.

In fact, I think I have found things that are certainly more beautiful than fibonacci. Fractals as a whole are all incredibly cool examples of emergent properties. Langston's ant is crazy s**t. And the fact that Pascal's triangle and Sierpinski's triangle turned out to be so relates is golden stuff.

Fibonacci keeps appearing everywhere, but so does Euler's number.

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Ancalagon
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14 Sep 2012, 5:53 pm

Vexcalibur wrote:

Mathy sequences are an "earthly" thing. Like a Rembrandt painting or physics.

This left me more confused than before. How can you call something mathematical earthly?

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Like I said, many of their "magical properties" come from fibonacci being a linear recurrence.

The 'magic properties' of many fractals come from the equations that define them. I just don't see why I should be bothered by this. What does it matter that a property is 'really' about something else? That a mathematical property exists just means that a true statement can be said about something, and it isn't the 'property' but the true statement that matters.

I don't doubt that there are many property statements that can be rephrased as a 'property' of something else, I just don't see why it's worth worrying about.

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Langston's ant is crazy sh**.

Interesting. I hadn't seen that one before.

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Fibonacci keeps appearing everywhere, but so does Euler's number.

Is this supposed to be a point against the Fibonacci numbers or for them?

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AspieRogue

14 Sep 2012, 6:23 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Ancalagon wrote:

Mathematical objects such as the Fibonacci numbers are beautiful. But they are as man made as portraits by Rembrant. Both are human artifacts, both are aesthetically appealing.

ruveyn

Ummmmm, the Fibonacci numbers describe a pattern which does occur in nature. That is what we are talking about here: Naturally existing patterns describable mathematically.

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14 Sep 2012, 7:02 pm

AspieRogue wrote:

Ummmmm, the Fibonacci numbers describe a pattern which does occur in nature. That is what we are talking about here: Naturally existing patterns describable mathematically.

That's a bit silly considering that Fibonacci created his sequence exactly so that he could describe a natural pattern.

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naturalplastic
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15 Sep 2012, 5:51 am

Fine.

God put the fibonacci sequence into nature.
And we all can get smoke pot and contemplate the beauty of it.

But this same God ALSO created Pi.

Why did he play THAT nasty practical joke on us?

When God invented the circle why didnt he make it so that the circumphrence of a circle was exactly three times its diameter?

Instead - he made it so that it is that nasty irrational number that starts with 3.14, and goes on forever without any recognizable pattern creating headaches for the human race since the beginning of time.

You cant stand in awe of the fibonacci sequence without getting a Pi in your face, I say!

ruveyn
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15 Sep 2012, 6:26 am

naturalplastic wrote:

Fine.

God put the fibonacci sequence into nature.
And we all can get smoke pot and contemplate the beauty of it.

Numbers are abstractions, hence they are human made artifacts.

In a cosmos with no sentient beings there are no abstractions.

Just atoms and energy.

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15 Sep 2012, 8:41 am

Vexcalibur wrote:

That's a bit silly considering that Fibonacci created his sequence exactly so that he could describe a natural pattern.

I don't think that's actually the case. Fibonacci numbers were stated as a way of predicting rabbit population, but I think that was window-dressing, rather than the intent behind them. Rabbits don't live forever, and don't have a fixed number of offspring at fixed intervals.

ruveyn wrote:

Numbers are abstractions, hence they are human made artifacts.

This makes no sense to me.

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Vexcalibur
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15 Sep 2012, 8:49 am

Ancalagon wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Numbers are abstractions, hence they are human made artifacts.

This makes no sense to me.

[/quote] Mathematics don't exist in nature. We can only abstract stuff we found in nature through mathematics.

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15 Sep 2012, 8:51 am

Ancalagon wrote:

Quote:

Fibonacci keeps appearing everywhere, but so does Euler's number.

Is this supposed to be a point against the Fibonacci numbers or for them?

The idea that there is something magical about Fibonacci numbers just because they have been found in more than one context is what makes them horribly overrated in my view. A lot of mathematical things show up in plenty of context. There is nothing very special in that feature.

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ruveyn
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15 Sep 2012, 9:07 am

Vexcalibur wrote:

Ancalagon wrote:

Quote:

Fibonacci keeps appearing everywhere, but so does Euler's number.

Is this supposed to be a point against the Fibonacci numbers or for them?

You might find this interesting:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDram ... igner.html

ruveyn

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15 Sep 2012, 6:19 pm

Fnord wrote:

What is the value of Pi?

If you say "Exactly 3" then you are wrong, but consider the Bible to be inerrant. Refer to 2nd Chronicles 4:2 and 1st Kings 7:23.

If you say "3.1", "3.14", "3.142", "3.1416", "3.14159", or "3.141593", then your answer becomes more correct with each additional digit, but you don't believe the Bible to be perfect.

Why do I bring this up? Just to show that numbers are not the "Fingerprint of God". They are numbers, data, and facts only.

Look how easily the Biblical inerrancy lie/nonsense is destroyed but a simple reference to the FACTS.

Thanks Fnord!

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15 Sep 2012, 6:32 pm

Tensu wrote:

Fnord wrote:

Rounding up Pi doesn't make the Bible imperfect.

Rounding exists.

Deal with it.

As f**king if an omniscient goD would round Pi to 3. Rounding to 3 causes errors to occur and would be a deceptive act. So much for the perfect, inerrant goD.

AspieRogue

15 Sep 2012, 7:34 pm

slave wrote:

Tensu wrote:

Fnord wrote:

Rounding up Pi doesn't make the Bible imperfect.

Rounding exists.

Deal with it.

As f**king if an omniscient goD would round Pi to 3. Rounding to 3 causes errors to occur and would be a deceptive act. So much for the perfect, inerrant goD.

Maybe G-d doesn't wanna round it up to 3.0.

And Tensue, IDC what you believe personally! The Bible is a book. A book that was written by MEN who claim it to be the word of G-d. I could write a book that says the Earth is flat and the Moon is made of green cheese and claim that it's G-ds word. Does that make it true? I don't think so.

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