Friday, April 8, 2011

Tool and Math-Incredible

This is a terrific blogpost found initially on The Big Picture but written by Kent Thune of "The Financial Philosopher". His writing is complex enough that I don't want to spoil it so I will use his words verbatim:

Whether you are an investment trader, a music fan, a mathematician, a curious observer wishing to learn more about human nature, or any combination thereof, you will appreciate this lesson on the Fibonacci Sequence
The video, created by a college student to help explain the Fibonacci sequence, features images of space from the Hubble Telescope and music from the cerebral and progressive hard rock band Tool.  What makes the video and song incredibly compelling is the lyrics, which teach a lesson on pattern recognition.
For those non-traders and non-mathematicians out there, a Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers where, after two starting values, each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers.  For example, the number sequence 2, 3, 5, 8 and 13 are a Fibonacci sequence (2+3=5, 3+5=8, 5+8=13, and so on).
Making the video and song more interesting is that the cadence of the lyrics (number of syllables of succeeding verses) follows a Fibonacci sequence.  What’s more, the meaning and lesson of the lyrics implies that humans are hopelessly addicted to looking for patterns everywhere they turn:  The “over-thinking” and “over-analyzing,” as the lyrics suggest, have an effect of dulling intuitive thought and often results in missed opportunities.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/04/tools-lesson-on-fibonacci-think-lateral/#more-64676

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