8 Wild Fibonacci Sequence Occurrences Unbelievably Found in Nature!

orange and white seashell on white surface

It’s really wild how the Fibonacci sequence and the related golden ratio just show up everywhere in nature. It makes you wonder if there was some design to the universe or if it’s just a really common pattern, either way, it makes for some cool looking flower petals and ferns. But that’s not the only place that the famous sequence shows up. Here are some more you probably didn’t know about…

1. The Number of Unread Emails in my Inbox

Real image of me checking my inbox following the fibonacci sequence

I don’t know about you but every time I open up my email, it feels like I have twice as many unread messages! Turns out, I actually have N(n-1) + N(n-2) more emails according to some analysis and it is becoming absolutely unbearable! It’s pretty bonkers my inbox is following the fibonacci sequence and most scientists don’t really know why. As there was little research interest why would they? But it’s really annoying and I think I’d be okay with my inbox following a different sequence.

2. The number of Ant Hills in my back Yard

Ant hills which populate according to the Fibonacci sequence despite how many I destroy

So several weeks ago, I got an ant hill in my back yard, so I ran it over with my mower to get rid of that thing. Gotta show those bugs who’s boss, why else would I have a Dixie Chopper Classic 60″ Zero Turn Mower with 27HP Kawasaki Engine? Well wouldn’t ya know it, they built it back within a week. So I ran over it again. Wouldn’t ya believe it, another week goes by and I have two ant hills. Then the next week 3! Still no problem for that Kawasaki Engine, but then I got five ant hills! What the heck? Long story short, it’s been 5 weeks, my lawn mower’s still powering through them all but at about 89 ant hills, I’m spreading more dirt than I’m cutting grass! When I realized what was going on, I discovered that the ants were repopulating according to the fibonacci sequence, those bastards!

3. This weird thing on my skin I’m not sure if I should have someone check out but it really itches

Rash I found on my skin which spirals according to the Golden Ratio
User:QuadellCC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

So I’ve got this thing, I’m not sure what it is, but it’s basically expanding and spiraling at a fibonacci sequence. I’ve tried googling red rash expanding according to a fibonacci spiral which approximately fits the Golden Ratio but none of my other symptoms seem to match so I don’t think I have skin cancer…yet…idk. My friend says I should put Aloe on it, but I can’t find any without any chemicals I think the FDA’s trying to push for dubious intent. ALSO, it can’t be just a normal rash if the spiral is this exact, maybe it’s some special spider?

4. Number of Changes I get back from Reviewer #2 on my Journal Article

Man frustrated by the 34 more revisions requested by Reviewer #2

I don’t know how many revisions I’m going to have to go through, but just when I fixed the last 21 things Reviewer #2 told me to fix, they think of 34 more! There’s no winning with this guy! I almost feel like he’s just looking for problems I’ve had to change so many things in this paper. Anyway, I took a peak in his office and I’m looking at about 55 red marks on this 8th draft so I’m starting to think this is some sort of cruel joke he’s playing on me.

5. Number of Dick Pics Women Receive after setting their Relationship Status to Single

A typical dick pic which a girl may receive after changing her status to single
A typical dick pic which a girl may receive after changing her status to single

A recent study suggested that for any woman over a 6 that has been in a significantly long relationship, they will receive 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181… dick pics each hour for the first 48 hours of being single or until they block all strangers. According to the study, there are so many thirsty guys out there proud of certain organs that once word gets out, and the boys with low self esteem start double texting, the amount of penis pictures a woman will see actually follows the fibonacci sequence for a short period of time. The study was in no way a method to scare the author’s girlfriend from leaving him because he didn’t want to do the dishes.

6. How many cups of Coffee I have to drink every day to not get fired

beverage break breakfast brown because I'll lose my job if I'm not caffeinated

You know it’s about time to take a vacation when you’re drinking 21 cups of coffee a day just to stay awake during your weekly update meeting. While I love coffee, I’m really going to have to learn how to control my caffeine tolerance. By the time it’s been 9-10 weeks since I’ve taken a vacation or gotten sick to reset my own tolerance, I’ve gotta start taking 34-55 cups worth of caffeine pills, cause I’ll otherwise get fired for going to the bathroom too much.

7. The Text Frequency of this girl that just started ghosting me

A girl that ghosted me by taking N(n-1) + N(n-2) hours longer to respond between each text

I thought we had a real connection. We even shared the same values and wanted four kids and two dogs. But I know what she’s doing, it’s not lost on me that she’s started taking N(n-1) + N(n-2) more hours to respond to my texts asking “Wana get together?” since our last date. She’s obviously decided that it would be a pretty decent frequency to slowly stop talking to me like I wouldn’t even notice. Grow up Evelyn and just tell me you’re not interested.

8. How long it takes to pick something new to watch on Netflix

man and woman sitting on a couch in front of a television taking progressively more time to pick a show to watch

Don’t ya ever feel like every time you finish a show or movie you have an exponentially longer time finding a new thing to watch. Well it may be a lack of interest in what’s out there or Netflix’s content quality going down hill (like what even was wrong with those Cowboy Bebop writers?) but it certainly isn’t exponential. A new study to determine how many times people would rewatch old favorites like Arrested Development has determined that the average American’s time in hours between picking a new thing to stream follows the fibonacci sequence in minutes.

If you enjoyed this listical of things that follow the pattern 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181…please like, share, and subscribe with your email, our twitter handle (@JABDE6), our facebook group hereor the Journal of Immaterial Science Subreddit for weekly content. 

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Published by B McGraw

B McGraw has lived a long and successful professional life as a software developer and researcher. After completing his BS in spaghetti coding at the department of the dark arts at Cranberry Lemon in 2005 he wasted no time in getting a masters in debugging by print statement in 2008 and obtaining his PhD with research in screwing up repos on Github in 2014. That's when he could finally get paid. In 2018 B McGraw finally made the big step of defaulting on his student loans and began advancing his career by adding his name on other people's research papers after finding one grammatical mistake in the Peer Review process.

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