The Golden Ratio : The Story of PHI, the World's Most Astonishing Number, Mario Livio

The Golden Ratio : The Story of PHI, the World's Most Astonishing Number by Mario Livio is a book about a number. the number phi (Φ). Φ is an irrational number like pi (π). Φ is equal to 1.618033988749895...  The number Φ is intimately related to the Fibonacci series [0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34...] and it pops up in a surprising number of places. in fact a bit of a numerological cult has developed around it.

The Livio book is all about Φ and its history. Livio points out where Φ is found in nature and geometry and art. Livio also plays myth-buster and debunks those claims by golden ratio mystics who find Φ where it is not.

This book is a tough read for a layman but armchair mathematicians will find it fascinating.

I first encountered Φ as a young child. My father, a university professor with no formal mathematics training, bought me the Time-Life book of Mathematics by David Bergamini. The Bergamini book, published in 1963 is a survey of mathematics for laymen. My father read it to me before I could read a word and when i learned to read, I read it over and over. This book introduced me to Φ and π and Fibonacci.

Φ appears in many enough places that there is no need to find it where it is not. The golden ratio is found in the regular pentagon and its inscribed star. The shell of the Chambered Nautlius grows according to its ratio. The leaves of many plants are arranged in a pattern that follows the golden ratio.

The site http://goldennumber.net/ suggests that Noah's Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, the colors of the tabernacle and even the number 666 are related to the golden ratio. The site even finds the golden ratio in the stock market.

I eventually went on to win a scholarship and major in mathematics. This book is an excellent non-mystical introduction to the golden ratio.

The Golden Ratio gets 3 of 5 dis-oriented smileys

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