1 week Ago By BBC
[BBC]A league title win like that of Liverpool's this season is always bound to throw up eye-catching numbers and records.But one quite specific set of numbers as a result of this particular Premier League title will have piqued the interest of mathematicians and numbers fans alike.By securing this trophy, the Reds have completed the start of an extraordinary mathematical concept that has been 33 years in the making - the Fibonacci sequence.
But what does that mean?The Fibonacci sequence is a sequence in which each number (after the first two) is the sum of the previous two in the sequence.By ranking Liverpool alongside the other clubs that have won the Premier League since it was first formed in 1992, listing them by the number of titles won and starting with the lowest, we can see the pattern emerge - 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13.The reason why this is somewhat remarkable is that this is a sequence that can be found in an astonishing array of places – from the spirals of seeds on sunflower heads and the bracts of pinecones to family tree patterns in some species of animals.
For it to crop up in the data on the number of Premier League title wins is surprising, and can lead to questions of whether it is just coincidence or something more.However, with no plausible mechanism which could have given rise to the sequence, the answer is almost certainly nothing more. A pattern doesn't always mean causality - a coincidence is sometimes just a coincidence.
And so a Fibonacci sequences in the Premier League records is just that – nothing more than a spectacular but ultimately misleading coincidence.Read more about how Liverpool's title win has completed this mysterious sequence here.
