# Determine the (N-1)th fibonacci number from a given extremely large Nth ? [closed]

Hi mathgeeks,

Given an extremely large fibonacci number X, and it's position in the fibonacci sequence N, is there any way to determine the N-1th fibo num, WITHOUT doing the bruteforce dance of counting from 1 upwards?

I've tried attacking the problem by dividing the number by two, and determining the difference between the N-1th, and N-2th, but that would require calculating Fib(n-3)/2, which makes the problem circular.

Also would be interested, if this can be proven not to be possible, thanks

## closed as off topic by Todd Trimble♦, Mark Sapir, José Figueroa-O'Farrill, Andrés E. Caicedo, Qiaochu YuanDec 26 '10 at 16:49

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• Just divide by the golden mean and round to the nearest integer. This gives the correct (n-1)st Fibonacci provided that F_n is greater than 1. – Todd Trimble Dec 26 '10 at 15:34
• @Todd, that's a very similar approach to the one suggested below by J.C. Ottem. – Mariano Suárez-Álvarez Dec 26 '10 at 15:41
• Yes, I see that now. Anyway, I vote to close this question as being not anywhere near research level. – Todd Trimble Dec 26 '10 at 15:42

For large $n$, $\frac{f_{n+1}}{f_n} \approx \phi = 1.618..$. Hence you can get $f_n$ from $f_{n+1}$ by rounding $\frac{f_{n+1}}{\phi}$ to the nearest integer.