PHI, The Golden Ratio

After my previous post, you already know that I love everything related with numbers and especially those facts that combine numbers and real life.

So that, today I want to write a few lines about another very important number in our lives although maybe it is not recognized by as many people as it happens with Pi. I'm talking about PHI, also known as the "golden ratio". Another irrational number with a great presence into the Nature, but also used by sculptors, painters and architects since many centuries ago.

In fact, its name comes from the famous artist and architect Phidias who built the Parthenon in the Ancient Greece, a building where golden ratio is present almost everywhere.

We find the golden ratio when we divide a line into two parts so that the longer part divided by the smaller part is also equal to the whole length divided by the longer part.

Many artists and architects believe that Golden Ratio makes the most pleasing and beautiful shape of a rectangle. There are even scientific studies which demonstrates that most of the people perceives this proportion as more beautiful than other ones.

By the way, one of the most famous series of numbers (Fibonacci series) is based in the golden ratio because each number of the series is the sum of the two numbers that precede it. This series floods Nature:

• Many flowers have a number of petals that belongs to Fibonacci series.
• Sunflower seeds follow spiraling patterns and each spiral is a number of this famous series.
• Something similar happens with pinecones and their seed pods.
  
  

  
    
  

  We can also find this amazing ratio at snail shells, nautilus, the cochlea of our inner ear and spiral galaxies. Even in destructive forms… just have a look at satellite pictures of a hurricane and you will see that harmonious spiral inscribed into imaginary golden ratio rectangles. But this is just a small piece of the cake, next post I will write about human body (face, fingers, the Vitrubian man…), animal bodies, reproduction, DNA molecules.
  

  
  
  
  Don’t you think it’s an amazing relationship between Maths and Nature?
  
  
  
  You can learn more about Phi on
  
  http://sciencepenguin.com/golden-ratio/