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Top tip: miles, kilometres, Fibonacci

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Here’s a useful observation: The Golden Ratio is roughly the same as the ratio between miles and kilometers. As successive terms in the Fibonacci sequence approximate the Golden Ratio, the sequence comes in handy for quick conversions.

Here are the first 20 terms:

F0 F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 F10 F11 F12 F13 F14 F15 F16 F17 F18 F19 F20
0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 610 987 1597 2584 4181 6765

Using the Fibonacci, we approximate 987 miles (F16) as 1597 km. Google’s conversion tells us that 987 miles equals 1,588 km.

Not bad, eh?

Written by David

August 13th, 2008 at 9:38 pm

Posted in Science and Technology

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