Title:
The golden ratio : the story of phi, the world's most astonishing number
Author:
Publication Date:
2002
Publication Information:
New York : Broadway Books, ©2002.
Physical Description:
viii, 294 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm
ISBN:
9780767908160
Abstract:
The Golden Ratio is a captivating journey through art and architecture, botany and biology, physics and mathematics. It tells the human story of numerous phi-fixated individuals, including the followers of Pythagoras who believed that this proportion revealed the hand of God; astronomer Johannes Kepler, who saw phi as the greatest treasure of geometry; such Renaissance thinkers as mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa; and such masters of the modern world as Goethe, Cezanne, Bartok, and physicist Roger Penrose. Wherever his quest for the meaning of phi takes him, Mario Livio reveals the world as a place where order, beauty, and eternal mystery will always coexist.
Contents:
Preface -- Prelude to a number -- The pitch and the pentagram -- Under a star-y-pointing pyramid? -- The second treasure -- Son of good nature -- The divine proportion -- Painters and poets have equal license -- From the tiles to the heavens -- Is God a mathematician?
Language:
English
