Any length can be divided in such a way that the ratio between the smaller part and the larger part is equivalent to the ratio between the larger part and the whole (see Figure 3-3). That ratio is always .618.
Figure 3-3
The Golden Section occurs throughout nature. In fact, the human body is a tapestry of Golden Sections (see Figure 3-9) in everything from outer dimensions to facial arrangement. "Plato, in his Timaeus," says Peter Tompkins, "went so far as to consider phi, and the resulting Golden Section proportion, the most binding of all mathematical relations, and considers it the key to the physics of the cosmos." In the sixteenth century, Johannes Kepler, in writing about the Golden, or "Divine Section," said that it described virtually all of creation and specifically symbolized God’s creation of "like from like." Man is divided at the navel into a Golden Section. The statistical average is approximately .618. The ratio holds true separately for men, and separately for women, a fine symbol of the creation of "like from like." Is mankind’s progress also a creation of "like from like?"
Figure 3-4
The sides of a Golden Rectangle are in the proportion of 1.618 to 1. To construct a Golden Rectangle, start with a square of 2 units by 2 units and draw a line from the midpoint of one side of the square to one of the corners formed by the opposite side as shown in Figure 3-4.
Triangle EDB is a right-angled triangle. Pythagoras, around 550 B.C., proved that the square of the hypotenuse (X) of a right angled triangle equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides. In this case, therefore, X2 = 22 + 12, or X2 = 5. The length of the line EB, then, must be the square root of 5. The next step in the construction of a Golden Rectangle is to extend the line CD, making EG equal to the square root of 5, or 2.236, units in length, as shown in Figure 3-5. When completed, the sides of the rectangles are in the proportion of the Golden Ratio, so both the rectangle AFGC and BFGD are Golden Rectangles. The proofs are as follows:
Figure 3-5
Since the sides of the rectangles are in Golden Ratio proportion, then the rectangles are, by definition, Golden Rectangles.
Works of art have been greatly enhanced with knowledge of the Golden Rectangle. Fascination with its value and use was particularly strong in ancient Egypt and Greece and during the Renaissance, all high points of civilization. Leonardo da Vinci attributed great meaning to the Golden Ratio. He also found it pleasing in its proportions and said, "If a thing does not have the right look, it does not work." Many of his paintings had the right look because he consciously used the Golden Rectangle to enhance their appeal. Ancient and modern architects, most famously those who designed the Parthenon in Athens, have applied the Golden Rectangle deliberately in their designs.
Apparently, the phi proportion does have an effect on the viewer of forms. Experimenters have determined that people find it aesthetically pleasing. For instance, subjects have been asked to choose one rectangle from a group of different types of rectangles. The average choice is generally found to be close to the Golden Rectangle shape. When asked to cross one bar with another in a way they liked best, subjects generally used one to divide the other into the phi proportion. Windows, picture frames, buildings, books and cemetery crosses are often approximate Golden Rectangles.
As with the Golden Section, the value of the Golden Rectangle is hardly limited to beauty but apparently serves a function as well. Among numerous examples, the most striking is that the double helix of DNA itself creates precise Golden Rectangles at regular intervals of its twists (see Figure 3-9).
While the Golden Section and the Golden Rectangle represent static forms of natural and man-made aesthetic beauty and function, the representation of an aesthetically pleasing dynamism, an orderly progression of growth or progress, is more effectively made by one of the most remarkable forms in the universe, the Golden Spiral.
The Golden Spiral
A Golden Rectangle can be used to construct a Golden Spiral. Any Golden Rectangle, as in Figure 3-5, can be divided into a square and a smaller Golden Rectangle, as shown in Figure 3-6. This process theoretically can be continued to infinity. The resulting squares we have drawn, which appear to be whirling inward, are marked A, B, C, D, E, F and G.
The dotted lines, which are themselves in golden proportion to each other, diagonally bisect the rectangles and pinpoint the theoretical centre of the whirling squares. From near this central point, we can draw the spiral shown in Figure 3-7 by connecting with a curve the points of intersection for each whirling square, in order of increasing size. As the squares whirl inward and outward, their connecting points trace out a Golden Spiral.
Figure 3-6
Figure 3-7
At any point in the evolution of the Golden Spiral, the ratio of the length of the arc to its diameter is 1.618. The diameter and radius, in turn, are related by 1.618 to the diameter and radius 90° away, as illustrated in Figure 3-8.
Figure 3-8
The Golden Spiral, which is a type of logarithmic, or equiangular, spiral, has no boundaries and is a constant shape. From any point along it, the spiral proceeds infinitely in both the outward and inward directions. The centre is never met, and the outward reach is unlimited. The core of the logarithmic spiral in Figure 3-8, if viewed through a microscope, would have the same look as its expansion would from light years away.
While Euclidean geometric forms (except perhaps for the ellipse) typically imply stasis, a spiral implies motion: growth and decay, expansion and contraction, progress and regress. The logarithmic spiral is the quintessential expression of natural growth phenomena found throughout the universe. It covers scales as small as the motion of atomic particles and as large as galaxies. As David Bergamini, writing for Mathematics (in Time-Life Books’ Science Library series) points out, the tail of a comet curves away from the sun in a logarithmic spiral. The epeira spider spins its web into a logarithmic spiral. Bacteria grow at an accelerating rate that can be plotted along a logarithmic spiral. Meteorites, when they rupture the surface of the Earth, cause depressions that correspond to a logarithmic spiral. An electron microscope trained upon a quasi crystal reveals logarithmic spirals. Pine cones, sea horses, snail shells, mollusk shells, ocean waves, ferns, animal horns and the arrangement of seed curves on sunflowers and daisies all form logarithmic spirals. Hurricane clouds, whirlpools and the galaxies of outer space swirl in logarithmic spirals. Even the human finger, which is composed of three bones in a Golden Section to one, takes the spiral shape of the dying poinsettia leaf (see Figure 3-9) when curled. In Figure 3-9, we see a reflection of this cosmic influence in numerous forms. Eons of time and light years of space separate the pine cone and the galaxy, but the design is the same: a logarithmic spiral, a primary shape governing natural dynamic structures. Most of the illustrated forms involve the Fibonacci ratio, whether precisely or roughly. For example, the pine cone and sunflower have a Fibonacci number of units in their whorls; a quasi crystal displays the five-pointed star; and the radii of a Nautilus shell expand at a rate of a 1.6-1.7 multiple per half cycle. The logarithmic spiral spreads before us in symbolic form as one of nature’s grand designs, a force of endless expansion and contraction, a static law governing a dynamic process, sustained by the 1.618 ratio, the Golden Mean.
