From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Sat Aug 02 2003 - 22:03:49 EDT
Glenn Morton wrote:
>
> Josh wrote in answer to Brian's question about the Fibonacci series:
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
> >Behalf Of Josh Bembenek
> >Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 10:08 PM
>
> >Let me first state that I cannot speak for every last nuance of what the
> >word specification means to either ID or myself. However it appears to be
> >the case as some flowering plants and other biotic creatures display (if
> >this is where you are going...)
> >
>
> The Fibonacci sequence is really no different than primes. They are a subset
> of real numbers which match a recipe. Indeed all sequences like this match
> recipes of one sort or another. The primes match the recipe that they are
> only divisible evenly by one and by themselves. Fibonacci numbers match the
> recipe that they are the sum of the last two numbers in the series.
There is a basic difference between the Fibonacci sequence & the primes. As you
note, there is a formula with which one can generate as many members of the 1st sequence
as you wish. But there is no general formula for generating primes (unless there's been
a new discovery I haven't heard of, a possibility since I'm hardly a number theorist).
All proposed prime-generating formulas have been found to break down at some point.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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