Golden Ratio Limericks
The Golden Ratio is (sqrt(5) + 1) / 2; it is
the ratio that fibonacci numbers aim towards;
it has been found in or applied to art, architecture,
typography, nautilus shells, sunflowers, the
arrangement of flower petals, and is apparently
one of the things underlying much that
we humans tend to find esthetically pleasing,
including the proportions of the human face.
And (for arithmetic geeks): it's the only number whose
decimal part is the same as its reciprocal.
In response to a mailing list request, I wrote a
couple of limericks about the Golden Ratio.
The square root of 5 plus a one,
Over two yields a ratio of fun,
And that golden mean
Can so often be seen
In art, shells, fonts — all that's been done.
Add one to the square root of 5,
Halve that, get the means to derive
The face that appeals.
Our esthetic ideals
Keep the art-math connection alive.
I wrote one extra first segment:
Half the square root of 5, plus a half,
Is the portion of neck per giraffe,
Here's Michael E.'s effort, may need some scansion help:
"A cool thing, in which I've delighted!"
A numbers geek here has confided,
"I've trapped the mean we call Golden
In this line you're beholdin':
The square root of five, plus one, then divided."
Here's Cap'n Walker's idea, that Tony W. dragged through a scansion filter:
Da Vinci, in art that he drew,
Used all of the math(s) that he knew.
"Amazing", they said
"Does it all in his head!"
"One and square root five, over two"
That one's my favorite.
Some references:
Oh, by the way:
I made up the "fact" about the giraffe. Call it poetic license.
Update (24 April 2004): Yow, sorry, Mark. I only just stumbled upon the comments you put here nearly a year and a half ago! The link is fixed, finally.
11:47:57 PM
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