Fibonacci or Maybe It's Just Really Random?

A bee colony is headed by a queen who near the beginning of her life mated with a number of male drones.  The spermatozoa are then stored by the queen and she uses it throughout her lifespan to fertilise eggs.  She has the ability to decide which sperm (from which drone) to use to fertilise the egg, or not fertilize it at all.  Unfertilized eggs grow into drones – a male clone of the queen – who will then hopefully go out of the hive and mate with other newly hatched queens and pass on her genetics to that hive.  If ever I believed that there was someone/thing behind all this and ultimately in control – some God type figure – it is in the next bit.  These drone bees have no father (because they’re born from an unfertilised egg) although they do have a mother (the queen that laid the egg).  That mother queen has two parents (because it’s female) – a drone and a queen – and the next generation will be three great grandparents (two queens and one drone), and the next (great great grandparents) will be five individuals – three queens and two drones.  So on and so forth.  So the actual number of individual bees in each generation is this: 1 (the current male drone bee); 1 (queen); 2 (drone, queen); 3 (queen, queen, drone); 5 (drone, queen, drone, queen, queen); 8 (queen, drone, queen, queen, drone, queen, drone, queen).  The sequence being 1,1,2,3,5,8 and on and on and on.  The sum of the two lower numbers always make up the next number in the sequence.  In maths this sequence is named after its discoverer, Fibonacci, and can be found

throughout nature such as in the shape of the leaves on a stem or the arrangements of a pinecone, to the curves seen in shells or the shape of a hurricane.  This seems to be some type of signature of life on Earth – and has been used as an argument for the existence of God (although I don’t know which one) as it points towards chaos not being as chaotic as you would think.

Harry, my wife and I spent some time over Christmas with my sister and her family.  My niece was there with her partner, who had brought his brother along – someone I (nor Harry) had ever met before.  I don’t know if he was pre-briefed on Harry but this guy (we’ll call him Josh) was great with him.  Harry was asking about his tattoos, pulling his beard, jumping on his lap.  Harry’s nine years old – getting a bit too big for this type of play, but Josh took it on the chin.  It was Christmas after all and Harry was the only child in the room.  Well done, Josh.  It’s appreciated.  You should think about having kids of your own – you’re a natural.  It’s good for Harry to meet new people – and play with them.

But it made me think – that’s not Fibonacci is it?  This doesn’t adhere to nature’s code.  My niece meets a guy, this guy has a brother, this brother gets on really well with Harry.  Doesn’t that say that this random meeting of people and whether we get on or not, has all to do with chaos and nothing to do with formulae?  Measuring and classifying Harry’s autism is something I’ve been asked to do in the past: “Just how autistic is Harry?”  It’s impossible to say with such a range of characteristics, but it doesn’t matter to us – the people he loves or the new people he meets.  He generally makes a good impression with those people who take the time to interact with him, but not always – some people he just doesn’t like.  No matter how hard they try.  All this chaos and at the end of it we have a nine year old boy with autism, who had a great Christmas, played with some new people and brought joy and love into lots of peoples’ lives.

 

Go figure that out Fibonacci (Fibonacci died some time in the 13th century).