Fibonacci Flip II, Peter Randall-Page

Peter Randall-Page works primarily in monumental sculpture inspired by biological forms. Recently, his work has become increasingly concerned with the underlying principles determining growth and the forms it produces. In his words “geometry is the theme on which nature plays her infinite variations, fundamental mathematical principles become a kind of pattern book from which nature constructs the most complex and sophisticated structures.”

The title of this drawing references the famous Fibonacci number sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers (0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, etc.). This sequence turns up in surprising ways throughout the natural world, including spiraling florets in the head of a sunflower. Although Randall-Page’s count is not an actual pair of adjacent Fibonacci numbers, they are (or are close to) double Fibonacci numbers, and double Fibonacci spirals have been documented in the heads of some sunflowers.