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Farey rabbits

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

Abraham Arcavi
Affiliation:
Department of Science Teaching, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel
Maxim Bruckheimer
Affiliation:
Department of Science Teaching, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel

Extract

The Farey sequence of order n(Fn) is the sequence of all reduced fractions between 0 and 1, whose denominator does not exceed n, arranged in increasing order of magnitude.

For example, F6 is .

The Fibonacci sequence is the sequence for which u1 = 1, u2 = 1 and un = un-1 + un-2,namely, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, … , un

At first sight, there is little connection between Farey’s fractions and Fibonacci’s integers. The purpose of this note is to show and explore such a connection and hence derive some properties of the Fibonacci sequence directly from previously proved properties of the Farey sequences. The former properties are well-known, but their rather unusual derivation from Farey properties may have some interest.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 2000

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References

1. Bruckheimer, M. and Arcavi, A., A visual approach to some elementary number theory, Math. Gaz. 79 (November 1995) pp. 471478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. Borob’ev, N. N., Fibonacci numbers. Pergamon Press 1961.Google Scholar