Pythagoras meets Fibonacci at the Lapin Agile snooker emporium
Arabic Numerals were introduced to Europe by Leonardo Bonacci. Bonacci, better known as Fibonacci, hailed from the 13th Century Republic of Pisa. If not for Fibonacci, we would all be using grandfather and cuckoo clocks.
Yet some people believe intelligent life became fully evolved when they were born. Fibonacci provided us with the Fibonacci Series; which ran just one season on Netflix. It is a series of numbers where each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers.
Imagine the mysterious Fibonacci Series: f1, f2, f3, f4, where f1 = 7 and f4= 27.
Find the product of f1 and f4 and call that product A. Find twice the product of f2 and f3 and call that product B. Find the sum of the squares of f2 and f3 and call that sum of the squares C.
A, B and C form a Pythagorean Triple rarely performed off the Diving Platform.
Verify the applicability of the Pythagorean Theorem: A2+ B2= C2
Find the area of the right triangle (not drawn to scale) depicted above.
Send your correct answer to [email protected] for a chance to win a Tucker’s gift card.
Last week’s winner was Steve Morse with surface area = 2026 square centimeters.
Jeff Smith is a former Math teacher and a retired US Navy Lieutenant Commander. Reach him at [email protected].
