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- The Fibonacci sequence is a driven by the second order linear difference equation
- Fn+2 = Fn+1 + Fn, with boundary conditions F1 = 1, F2 = 1,
- and thus can be solved exactly. As we know from practice that Fn is roughly exponential, we try Fn = Aa^n for A and a constants. This gives the quadratic
- a^2 = a + 1, which happens to be the equation for the golden ratio Φ, and its inverse which I'll denote Φ'
- (i.e. Φ' = 1/Φ, Φ' = Φ - 1)
- As the equation is second order then it is a linear combination of these two solutions and the boundary conditions define the constants involved, i.e.
- Fn = AΦ^n + BΦ'^n
- F0 = 0 (easy if you follow backwards) so A + B = 0
- F1 = 1 . Using Φ = (1 + r)/2 and Φ' = (1 - r)/2 where r is the positive square root of 5, you can find
- A - B = 2/r yielding A = 1/r, B = -1/r
- So Fn = (Φ^n /r) - (Φ'^n /r) = (Φ^n - Φ'^n)/r for all n.
- As can be seen, the even terms are when n is a multiple of 3, so using this formula add F3 + F6 + ... until you get a term greater than one million. Thus a program for this could be only a handful of lines long. A slightly further simplification would be to work out Φ^3 and Φ'^3, call them b and b' respectively. Then
- F3k = (b^k - b'^k)/r for k = 1,2,3...
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