this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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I just learned the mind palace technique to memorize stuff and wanna put it to use.

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[โ€“] arthur@lemmy.zip 65 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (16 children)

Do you remember the Fibonacci sequence? You can use it to convert miles to kilometers .

2 mi ~= 3km

5mi ~= 8km

8mi ~= 13km

13mi ~= 21km

And so on.

[โ€“] DoctorWhookah@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (13 children)

Wait, is this true until its not or is it true forever as you go higher in the sequence?

[โ€“] liam_galt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's true forever. The Fibonacci sequence used in this way converges on the golden ratio, which is close to the conversion of km and mi.

[โ€“] kakes@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

Someone already replied with a graph, but I also got curious and checked for some higher numbers. Sure enough, it held up.

For example:
832,040mi => 1,346,269km (actual: 1,339,039km)

[โ€“] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So are you telling me that the inventors of the mile were using the golden ratio?

[โ€“] Maya@lemmy.fmhy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

We wish they were that cool, the inventors of the modern mile were more concerned about land measurements. A square mile is 640 acres. Which neatly can be cut into quarters 3 times. 160, 40, 10.

[โ€“] arthur@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago

Just a neat coincidence

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