Fibonacci Numbers - People Seeing Patterns or Something Deeper?

[jimmydasaint]

Being a spiritual person, who loves to muse on the beauty of nature, and can quite happily watch grass grow with a sense of peace and tranquility, I am fascinated by Fibonacci Numbers, especially when these occur in nature.

 

Fibonacci's numbers in Nature

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, ...

 

The Sunflower

 

The sunflower, shown on the right, is a perfect example of the Fibonacci sequence and the corresponding "golden ratio" appearing in nature. Firstly, see how the florets are arranged in a spiral pattern both in a clockwise and counterclockwise fashion. There are 34 spirals that turn clockwise and 21 spirals that turn counterclockwise. The counter-clockwise spirals appear to grow according to the golden ratio. An approximate measure of this is that the radius of the spiral doubles with every 90° of rotation.

 

http://www.fibonacci.name/images/sunflower2.jpg

 

The above sequence occurs in flower petals, seed cones, leaf arrangements, honeybee genealogy and also rabbit breeding. Link

 

However, aware that I am in a Science Forum where rationality is normally the order of the day (no pun intended). I want to throw this out to people. Is it a significant thing or is it just humans recognising patterns and then rationalising them later? Or is there something of deeper significance?

Edited July 9, 2011 by jimmydasaint

[Fuzzwood]

What deeper significance would there be?

[xxSilverPhinxx]

I certainly think that the Fibonacci sequence and golden ration occuring in nature is very interesting, but I don't think there's any special meaning (of the kind that people tend to attribute to the world) to it.