About a week ago we took a quick look at a problem that Matt Enlow had posted on twitter:
Matt Enlow’s Fibonacci Problem
We had a little bit of extra time this morning, so I decided to revisit the problem to talk a little bit about modular arithmetic. I also really like this problem as an introductory proof problem, too, but that’ll have to wait for another day.
Also, sorry for writing the problem backwards at the start of the video, we manage to straighten it out once we look at the Fibonacci numbers mod 8.
Once we looked at the numbers mod 8, it was time to look at them mod 9 and see if we saw a pattern. I’d like to revisit this project some time to talk about ideas like why 8 = -1 mod 9.
So, I think this is a great problem for kids. It asks about a property that is fairly easy to understand and also provides a nice opportunity to introduce modular arithmetic. Lots of opportunities here to have some fun math conversations 🙂
Mike's Math Page 