The great Roger Penrose is approaching his 90th birthday. He was asked recently if he was looking forward to this and he replied saying that he was not and that he thought his 89th birthday had been a far more significant milestone as it is a Fibonacci number, and was likely to be the last Fibonacci number he would reach in his lifetime.

He's right - we should take note of these and have a bit of extra celebration on our 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 8th, 13th, 21st, 34th, 55th and 89th birthdays. We should also mark our 6th (perfect and factorial number), 24th (factorial) and 28th (perfect) birthdays. It might be overdoing it to also mark triangular numbers, squares and cubes unless you're really keen on special birthdays. This represents a whole new opportunity for the greetings card industry, who will have to find a rhyme for 'Fibonacci'.
-- hippo, Oct 28 2020

Clerihew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerihew
[hippo, Nov 03 2020]

If you switched over to months old instead of years old, you would get a lot more of everything.
-- xenzag, Oct 28 2020


[kdf] - you're right - the trite poem for someone's 89th birthday card could therefore read:

"Happy Birthday, it's your twelfth Fibonacci,
That means you're nearly as old as Liberace!"

[xenzag] That might be too much - but how about a special birthday to mark 31 years and 259 days (and about 1 and three-quarter hours)? - that's a billion seconds since your birth.
-- hippo, Oct 28 2020


When you reach 89 Fibonacci,
It’s time to get out the Hitachi,
It can dig a big hole,
For your body and soul,
While someone plays out Liberace.
-- xenzag, Oct 28 2020


For your 34th birthday:

”It’s time for a burst of mariachi
’cos you’ve hit your tenth Fibonacci!”
-- hippo, Oct 28 2020


If it's possible to have Unbirthdays - and it clearly is a thing, so yes - then it must be possible to also have imaginary birthdays, though these are probably limited to scientists, engineers and mathematicians ...
-- 8th of 7, Oct 28 2020


I wonder what happened to Archie,
Who was cashiered out in Karachi,
...
-- pertinax, Oct 29 2020


He was aided by old Dennis Bloodnok,
Who keeps all his cash in a bedsock ...
-- 8th of 7, Oct 29 2020


There was a young man from Karachi
Who dressed himself up in Versace
When they asked him why
He'd pose, and would cry:
"Because it's my ninth Fibonacci*!"

*[i.e. 21 years old]
-- hippo, Oct 29 2020


I would have brought gifts monetary,
But money does not grow on a tree.
No longer your age has identity
Was easy when you were two, one, or three
But after two years of maturity,
Yes, now it's your fourth Fibonacci
-- pocmloc, Oct 29 2020


Surely the first number in the sequence should be called Fibonacco?
-- UnaBubba, Oct 29 2020


A bottlle of prossecco
for your newborn fibbonnacco
-- pocmloc, Oct 29 2020


I just thought of a small problem: both the 1st AND 2nd Fibonacci numbers are "1". So, do you celebrate twice, or just get twice as many gifts in the one celebration (or do you not care, because you're only 1 year old)?
-- neutrinos_shadow, Oct 29 2020


I think the first number is actually 0 (so the series goes 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21) but I take your point. I think you’d have to have two simultaneous celebrations on your first birthday
-- hippo, Oct 29 2020


Nope, the ZERO-TH number is "0". (Comes from the analytical form, Binet's formula.)
-- neutrinos_shadow, Oct 29 2020


Ah, right - unfortunately that makes all the numbering in my poetry (above) wrong
-- hippo, Oct 29 2020


"It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth zeroth of two ...

No, doesn't quite work somehow...
-- 8th of 7, Oct 29 2020


There is a difference between -the- nth Fibonacci number and -one's- nth Ffibonnaccchi number
-- pocmloc, Oct 29 2020


So... you people start rhyming Fibonacci, and you take all the good ones, and so I'm stuck with Friggin Nazi, and i can't fit it into a poem without looking like an asshole, and I shouldn't have even said anything, and I hope you're all happy now.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Oct 30 2020


In a year and some change I will have been on this site 20 years.

My tan this summer was all splotchy.
I burned myself with a hibachi.

Semi-rhymes can keep this low-key.
Does anybody want some gnocchi?
-- RayfordSteele, Oct 30 2020


//In a year and some change I will have been on this site 20 years.// - newbie!

A youngish Italian-Apache
Looked sad as he cried "Mi dispiace!"
"I've forgotten your birthday"
"I do hope it's OK"
"'cos I know it's your sixth Fibonacci!"
-- hippo, Oct 30 2020


A chiefly gift, tied up with ribbon:
Achieving now your seventh Fibonn-
-acci day; your age is
increasing in stages
of geometrical precision
-- pocmloc, Oct 30 2020


Next, Fibonacci Haiku ...

// I'm stuck with Friggin Nazi, and i can't fit it into a poem without looking like an asshole, //

You really shouldn't be at all concerned about that, you looked like an asshole already. It's not going to make any difference at all.

// and I shouldn't have even said anything, and I hope you're all happy now. //

No, because we still haven't heard the poem, with or without Fascist elements.

You could always go for something of a Mussolini theme rather than German.
-- 8th of 7, Oct 30 2020


whew

hmmm...

Wait, I could rhyme Fibonacci with flipp'n Yahtzee and lose friggin nazi for a thickened pot, see?
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Oct 30 2020


You could try making it a musical, like "Springtime For Hitler." It would be a smash hit.
-- RayfordSteele, Oct 31 2020


I once met that nice Dr Fauci
who quickly said "Arrivederci!"
"I would love to chat"
"about this and that"
"but it's my twelfth Fibonacci!"
-- hippo, Oct 31 2020


"but today is my twelfth Fibonacci ! " scans somewhat better ... the extra syllable makes all the difference.
-- 8th of 7, Oct 31 2020


Yes, you’re right. Eight or nine syllables are allowed for lines 1, 2 and 5 of a limerick but as I chose nine syllables for lines 1 and 2, I should have stuck with that for line 5. It does kind of work if you emphasise the word “But”.
-- hippo, Oct 31 2020


To chainge the stress in the vocalization, you'd probably be best adding a hyphen, as in "but - it's my twelfth Fibonacci ! "
-- 8th of 7, Oct 31 2020


[xenzag]/[hippo] I'm hearing that with a mariachi accompaniment...
-- Dub, Oct 31 2020


The night my parents conceived me,
They partied with dirty zero fibonacci,

9 months later, on mothers pain, I was free
They celebrated again, with the first one out, fibonacci

And so begins the long wait for cake and tea
When I'll get my very own first fibonacci
-- wjt, Nov 01 2020


All Apaches from Wenatchee count their days in Fibonacci
-- xenzag, Nov 01 2020


Thanks for helping make sense of birthdays. They are far more deserving of recognition than other momentous days like, say, Halloween -- which no one really explains well.
-- reensure, Nov 02 2020


//which no one really explains well//
That's because it is inexplicable (like most religious/pseudo- religious celebrations...).
-- neutrinos_shadow, Nov 02 2020


//..nobody should ever need a REASON to throw a party..//

Here here! Birthdays are the epitome of pointlessness, so party hearty!
-- reensure, Nov 03 2020


Incidentally, a question for USA-based Halfbakers: is the Limerick verse form widely used there?
-- hippo, Nov 03 2020


In Limerick? I don't think so. But not sure why Americans would know that more than Irish people.
-- pocmloc, Nov 03 2020


No, I meant "there" referring to the USA - i.e. are limericks a familiar form of nonsense poetry in the USA? I think probably not, judging by your answer...
-- hippo, Nov 03 2020


I'm not in America!
-- pocmloc, Nov 03 2020


// especially in the town of Nantucket //

Is that the place where they carry their food in a bucket ?

// I'm not in America! //

Over three hundred million people probably envy you ...
-- 8th of 7, Nov 03 2020


There was a man not from Nantucket
With numbers he was just the ticket.
His name, as you see,
was Fibonacci,
He would take the last two and add up it.
-- pocmloc, Nov 03 2020


[pocmloc] Very good! For that, you earn your own Clerihew (see link):

Halfbaker [pocmloc]
Annotates with skill like Mr Spock
Where he is no one can say
But we're pretty sure he's not in the USA
-- hippo, Nov 03 2020


Thank you good [hippo]
your poem is uptempo
Your contributions here are always fine
And you even introduce us to new forms of rhyme.
-- pocmloc, Nov 03 2020


I think [8th of 7]
Lives in a bunker in Devon
Counting occurrences of "H****r"
And carving wood, being a whittler.
-- hippo, Nov 04 2020



random, halfbakery