The Golden Number in nature and architecture.

The Golden Number (also called Phi) is an important number. It is present in nature proportions such as in shells or in pine cones.



Greeks first used this number in buildings because they thought it was the beautiness number so, if the buildings proportions were based on Phi number, the construction would be beautyful as well. Buildings such as in the Partenon.



Since Greeks, Phi number became more used in other countrys in architecture (As in Eiffel thower) but also in paintings as in "A Venus Birth" or in "La Gioconda"


EIFFEL TOWER



THE BIRTH OF A VENUS


LA GIOCONDA


ILLÁN RIESTRA NAVA 3ºA

A special number: Phi

Among all rectangles, there is one which is more beautiful for the people. It´s an special rectangle. If you divide the longest side by the shortest side you obtain 1,6180339... and if you cut a square whose side is equal to the small side of the rectangle we obtain a rectangle similar to the original. This rectangle is used by designers, engineers, painters... to do a lot of things: credit cards snuff packages, buildings, pictures, etc.

Examples:

THE VENUS OF MILO

Venus´s navel divides the segment of the total height as the golden ratio.

SNUFF PACKAGES / CREDIT CARDS

Snuff packages has got the golden proportion and credit cards, too.

DURERO´S SPIRAL

It´s a spiral embedded in golden rectangles.

NOTRE-DAME

The façade of the Notre-Dame has got the golden proportion, because number Phi is related to the divinity.

THE GOLDEN PROPORTION

The positive solution of the ecuation x(x-1)-1=0 is 1,6180339887... This number is called phi, or the Golden Number and it's very very special.

In the environment, lots of things are made related to this number, due to the beauty of the proportion this number makes. Along the history, many cultures have discovered this number and they have tried to reproduce it in the art, so it's very common to see it in paintings, sculptures, buildings,...

There are many examples of this proportion. One of it it's the Keops Pyramid. Phi appears there not once, but many times. For example, the height of one face divided into the half of the side of the base, it's exactly 1,6180339887...

Another example is the famous New York building of United Nations. It's divided into three golden rectangles (which proportion is phi).

The last example is in the Sandro Boticcelli's painting El Nacimiento de Venus. The body of Venus takes exactly the golden proportion, but as well, the total dimensions of the painting forms a golden rectangle.

Pelayo Fernández Arias 3ºA

similarity

I think that a scissors are similar to stork beats.

Diego de Velazquez used the golden section to represent the Meninas, one of his best known works.

He used it to differentiate the bottom, with characters, and the top, with gloom and darkness.

Pilar Suarez de Cepeda y Maria Carracedo

Similarity with the moon

I think that the Cheshire Cat´s smile is similar than the crescent moon.

Similarity with the Moon



I think that the moon is similar to a monocle