posted by @ulaulaman about #FibonacciDay #AlanTuring #TuringSunflower
Today is the american Fibonacci's day, so it could be a good day to write something about one of the last work by
Alan Turing.
One of a number of problems [Alan Turing] was trying to solve was the appearence of Fibonacci numbers in the structure of plants.(1)
The problem was knwon as the
Fibonacci phyllotaxis, and we can state it in
this way:
the spiral shapes on the heads of sunflowers seemed to follow the Fibonacci sequence, prompting [Turing's] proposal that by studying sunflowers we might better understand how plants grow
Turing wrote his interest in a letter to the zoologist
JZ Young:
About the point (iii) Turing wrote in another letter:
Our new machine is to start arriving on Monday. I am hoping to do something about 'chemical embyology'. In particular I think I can account for the appearence of Fibonacci numbers in connection with fir-cones.(1)
The last year
Jonathan Swinton, during the Manchester Science Festival in October, announced the
results of the great experiment about the Turing's sunflower:
