Monday, March 30, 2015

Phi in Nature, Art and Architecture

Way back in the thirteenth century Leonardo Fibonacci wanted to figure out how many offspring a pair of rabbits and their offspring would have if each bred one female rabbit a month. Simple: 144 rabbits after one year, 46,368 after two, and 14,930,352 rabbits after three years. The illustrious mathematician of Pisa had discovered the Fibonacci Sequence.

By dividing each number in his sequence by its previous number, he had detected Phi, and called it the Golden Ratio. Phi can be rounded up to 1.618.

Arab scholars had long known about this sequence, because for ages they had been using Arab numerals, 0, 1, 2, 3, and were far ahead of Europeans, who were still struggling with Roman numerals.  No matter how brilliant a mathematician, the use of II, IV, or CXII is not conducive to doing math. When Fibonacci returned from his travels to Arabia, he vigorously encouraged Europeans to use the Arab system.

Amazingly, Phi happens to be ubiquitous and a fundamental characteristic of nature. It shows up in the patterns of leaves, flowers, pinecones, pineapples and shells, and even in the spiral of the galaxies.

Phi is not only known as the Golden Ratio in nature, it also features in architecture and art. The pyramids and the Parthenon reflect this principle. Le Corbusier carefully calculated a Golden Ratio when he designed the UN Headquarters. Many city halls and theaters are built in the Classical Greek tradition based on Phi.

Even great artists have embraced Phi. Leonardo Da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo and Salvador Mundi are all known for having applied the Golden Ratio to some of their famous works of art, such as The Last Supper, The Annunciation, The Birth of Venus, and The Creation of Adam.

Some people claim that the beauty of a face may depend on its ratio too.

May Phi harmonize your life.
Until next time,


Rosi

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