The Golden Ratio or Golden Section is a mathematical expression of proportion, explicitly two numbers whose ratio to each other is equal to the ratio of their sum to the larger number of the two. An expression of pure mathematics, and one that aptly demonstrates its direct influence on the physical world, the Golden Ratio has fascinated many thinkers over the last 2,400 years. The Greeks first noticed it as a result of their studies of geometry; for instance, it was observed in the proportions of Phidias’ statues inside the Parthenon in Athens in 432BC. The first recorded definition of the Golden Ratio appears in Euclid’s ‘Elements’, almost one hundred years later, in which he refers to the proportions as an “extreme and mean ratio”, noting that “as the whole line is to the greater segment, so is the greater to the lesser”. He goes on to demonstrate the Ratio’s presence in several subsequent theorems and proofs.
