(urth) Whorl arithmetic -- Fibonacci sequence

[John Smith]

I thought that this was just a joke.  The teacher is
getting old and making mistakes.



--- Dave Tallman <davetallman at msn.com> wrote:

> In CotLS chapter 5, Maytera Marble/Rose thinks "...
> as predictably as the
> sixth term in a Fibonacci series of ten was an
> eleventh of the whole."
> 
> This is peculiar, because the Fibonacci series is:
> 1. 1
> 2. 1
> 3. 2
> 4. 3
> 5. 5
> 6. 8
> 7. 13
> 8. 21
> 9. 34
> 10. 55
> 
> The sum of the first ten terms is 143 = 11*13, so
> it's the seventh term that
> is the eleventh of the whole, not the sixth.
> The sum of the first nine terms is 88 = 11*8, which
> means the sixth term is
> the eleventh of the whole, as stated.
> 
> In base 9, our nine is represented as 10. To make
> the statement correct, we
> have to translate the "series of ten" in base-9
> arithmetic and the
> "eleventh" in the decimal system.
> 
> Did the Maytera make a mistake, or did Wolfe, or
> should we revive the old
> base-9 controversy about Whorl arithmetic? There's
> another passage where the
> children seemingly make trvial arithmetic mistakes,
> as pointed out by
> Borski.
> 
> In _Nightside the Long Sun_, on p. 29, Wolfe has
> Maytera Marble presiding
> > over a mathematics lesson, "watching the children
> take nineteen from
> > twenty-nine and get nine, add seven and seventeen
> and get twenty-three."
> > This, however, is only possible in a base 9
> numbering system, and a strange
> > one at that, since a conventional base 9 system
> would only include the
> > digits 0 to 8 (there should thus no 9, 19, or 29).
> >
> >
>  Both statements could be correct if done in base 9,
> provided we solved the
> "9" representation problem and allow mixed
> translations:
>   (28+1)(base 9) - (18+1)(base 9) = 9 (decimal)
>   7(base 9) + 17(base 9) = 23 (decimal)
> 
> There might be some more clues involving costs with
> cards and bits, if we
> look for them.
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Best wishes,

Jack