1.618 - 'The Divine Proportion'

Da Vinici's Vitruvian Man


1.618
Who knows what this number is?

Well...that's the number PHI.
Not to be confused with PI (3,14...)

This number, PHI, "one-point-six-one-eight", is a very important number in art.

Some say PHI is generally considered 'the most beautiful number in the universe'.

The number PHI was derived from the Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21...)

— a progression famous not only because the sum of adjacent terms equaled the next term, but because the quotients of adjacent terms possessed the astonishing property of approaching the number 1.618—PHI!

Despite PHI's seemingly mystical mathematical origins, the truly mind-boggling aspect of PHI remains its role as a fundamental 'building block' in nature.

Plants, animals, and even human beings all possessed dimensional properties that adhered with eerie exactitude to the ratio of PHI to 1.

Some say that this... clearly exceeds coincidence, and so the ancients assumed the number PHI must have been preordained by the Creator of the universe. Early scientists heralded one-point-six-one-eight as the 'Divine Proportion'

Did you know that if you divide the number of female bees by the number of male bees in any beehive in the world, you always get the PHI number?

Did you know that...

The sunflower seeds grow in opposing spirals. Can you guess the ratio of each rotation's diameter to the next?

We can continue with the leaf arrangement on plant stalks, insect segmentation etc — all displaying astonishing obedience to the Divine Proportion.

"Interesting, but what does it have to do with art?" you may ask...

Look at the Leonardo da Vinci's famous male nude—'The Vitruvian Man' — named for Marcus Vitruvius, the brilliant Roman architect who praised the Divine Proportion in his text De Architectura. (the picture above in this post... ;-))

It seems that nobody understood better than Da Vinci the divine structure of the human body. He was the first to show that the human body is literally made of building blocks whose proportional ratios always equal PHI.

Try this:

Next time you're in the shower(or anywhere else... ;-)), take a tape measure.
And not for measuring that, boys! ;-)

Measure the distance from the tip of your head to the floor.
Then divide that by the distance from your belly button to the floor. Guess what number you get...
"One-point-six-one-eight"

Want another example?

Measure the distance from your shoulder to your fingertips, and then divide it by the distance from your elbow to your fingertips. PHI again.

Another?

Hip to floor divided by knee to floor. PHI again. Finger joints. Toes. Spinal divisions. PHI. PHI. PHI.

It seems that each of us is a walking tribute to the 'Divine Proportion'...

It seems that 'the chaos of the world has an underlying order'.

It seems that Michelangelo, Albrecht Dürer, Da Vinci, and many others, had an intentional and rigorous adherence to the 'Divine Proportion' in the layout of their compositions.

We can discover PHI in the architectural dimensions of the Greek Parthenon, the pyramids of Egypt, and even the United Nations Building in New York.

PHI appeared in the organizational structures of Mozart's sonatas, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, as well as the works of Bartók, Debussy, and Schubert. The number PHI was even used by Stradivarius to calculate the exact placement of the f-holes in the construction of his famous violins.

And ... if you draw a pentagram, the lines automatically divide themselves into segments according to the 'Divine Proportion'.

How do I know this?

Well, I've read it in the Dan Brown's best seller "The Da Vinci Code".

It's an interesting book and if you start reading it...you won’t let the book down until you find out...

A great book for the passionate of mysteries...

If you enjoyed my post about the "Mysterious archaeological finds", if you are interested in mystery, if you enjoyed ‘The X Files’ series, if you like to read Sci-Fi from time to time, if you are passionate about symbols and secrets and Secret Societies or if you are just curious... you must read Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code"

It seems everyone else read it...;-)

And what's really interesting:
Dan Brown claims that 'all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate'...

Here on PerformYourMagic blog you can find Personal & Business Development Training, Team Building, Coaching, Consulting Services, free powerful tools, news, links and articles for Successful people...Recommended by Cristian C. Francu