Trivia
The golden section (or divine proportion) is the relationship between two unequal magnitudes, of which the major is proportional with the minor and their sum ((a + b): a = a: b). This relationship is approximately 1,618.
The golden section is in fact the number of beauty and perfection in nature and we find many examples, as the proportion of the human body, the shape of shells, leaves or branches, the form of hurricanes, shifts in fish shoals or the double helix structure of human DNA.
Both the geometric and mathematical properties, which often take on in a variety of natural contexts, apparently unrelated to each other, over the centuries have impressed the mind of man, who arrived in time to capture an ideal of beauty and harmony, going in search and in some cases, recreating it as a canon of human beauty; testimony is perhaps the history of the name, that in recent times has taken the names of "golden" or "divine", a demonstration of its fascination. Being the number of beauty and perfection, it was associated with a proportion created by God since the antiquity.
In the figurative art in architecture and the concept of harmony and its numerical laws have governed since the ancient civilizations, through the golden section and through the processes of spiral-type growth, better known as the Fibonacci series.
These proportions are the foundation of the Egyptian pyramids, the greek temple, the Roman Cathedral and Gothic cathedrals. Among the early adopters of this relationship there were certainly the Greeks. The greek thought is inherently geometric; it should not be surprising that among all, it was the Greek civilization the one to design and define the golden ratio as we know it today.
Artists and mathematicians of the Renaissance, including Leonardo da Vinci, Piero della Francesca, Bernardino Luini, and Sandro Botticelli were very fascinated by the golden section. Then it was known as the "Divine Proportion" and was considered almost the key of harmony in the mystical arts and sciences. In the Monalisa the golden ratio has been identified in the provision of the framework, the dimensions of the face, in the region that runs from neck to above the hands, in what would be the neckline of the dress up to under the hands.
The golden section is also very important in innovation and technology. During the design of a product it should be considered that it should be easy to use, that it is pleasant and that it can easily interact with external applications. Thus the use of gold rectangles, or the divine proportion, is found again today with good approximation in the size of the cards, magnetic bands and a contact chip.
