The History of the Golden Ratio
1/ What is it?
Phi (Golden Ratio) as a mysterious number has been discovered in many places, such as art, architectures, humans, and plants.
The "Golden Ratio" is a mathematical ratio of 1.618:1, and the number 1.618 is called "Phi".
2/ Where and when did Phi first appear? Who was the discoverer?
According the history of mathematics, Phi was first understood and used by the ancient mathematicians in Egypt, two to three thousand years ago, due to its frequent appearance in Geometry. Phidias (500BC-432 BC), a Greek sculptor and mathematician, studied Phi and used the Phi in many designs of his sculptures, such as the statue of the goddess Athena in Athena, and the state of god Zeus in Olympiad. And Euclid Alexandria (365BC-300BC) had once described the Phi as "dividing a line in the extreme and mean ratio" in his Book VI of Elements.
The name "Golden Ratio" appears in the form sectio aurea (Golden Section in Greek) by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) who used this the Golden ratio in many of his masterpieces, such as The Last Supper and Mona Lisa. In 1900s, an Maerican mathematician named Mark Barr, represented the Golden Ratio by using a greek symbol Φ.
The Golden Ratio and Beauty in Humans
Phi is a mysterious number which has some related quantities and shapes, and it appears in the proportions of the human body, and other animals', in plants, in DNA, in solar system, in art and architecture, in music, etc.
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Nevertheless, it had been debated on whether or not it is a natural beauty-maker ever since the first renowned experience that a German physicist and psychologist Gustav Theodor Fechner conducted in the 1860s. His experience is simple: a person needs to choose the most...