[opportunity (OP)]

“[The golden proportion] is a scale of proportions which makes the bad difficult [to produce] and the good easy.”
― Albert Einstein

There's evidence for the golden ratio in nature. How seriously is this taken by scientific inquest though?  It's not mainstream, yet what features are required to make it a serious study of physical matter?

[Colin2B]

Look up Adolf Zeising who did work on golden mean/ratio in nature.
Keppler showed the relationship between Fibonacci and golden ratio, and Fibonacci sequence appears in nature, just as hexagonal patterns do.

[opportunity (OP)]

I agree. Evidence does exist in theory, in history. Yet most theory today passes it by.

Ideally a theory of everything can explain "everything" observed.

Should a theory of everything include a way to explain the golden ratio?


And....if you want to try to achieve that on the Planck scale, consider this team: www.quantumgravityresearch.org


I think that process they use is a tough deal, at such a level with geometry....hence their need to use "quasi-crystals" to link the Planck scale with the atomic.


I'm not a fan of the Planck scale. I think Planck was wrong about frequency and energy as a direct relationship on the sub-"elementary particle" level. His equations work on the atomic level, yet have been a stumbling block in detracting from the source-level of quanta radiation.

[opportunity (OP)]

Look up Adolf Zeising who did work on golden mean/ratio in nature.
Keppler showed the relationship between Fibonacci and golden ratio, and Fibonacci sequence appears in nature, just as hexagonal patterns do.

A quote from Zeising regarding the golden ratio:

the universal law in which is contained the ground-principle of all formative striving for beauty and completeness in the realms of both nature and art, and which permeates, as a paramount spiritual ideal, all structures, forms and proportions, whether cosmic or individual, organic or inorganic, acoustic or optical; which finds its fullest realization, however, in the human form.

I'm not sure how our lifestyles today allow for that contemplation, that insight?

I know its possible to do the math there, yet to be a poet first requires something else.......something to look forward to in knowing its right though.

[chiralSPO]

The golden ratio (φ) appears in nature.

So do π (often in the form of 2π, aka τ), e, √2, and many other apparently "special" numbers.

As far as I can tell, this just means that geometry is just as "true" in the "real world" as it is on paper.

I don't think that it is fruitful to seek a "theory of everything" by looking for the most "elegant" mathematics. Mathematicians must seek mathematical truth through rigorous logic. Scientists must seek to understand the world around them, by studying the world around them (often using mathematics to frame their theories, but not always). Observation and experimentation necessarily supersede theorization.

No successful scientist wakes up in the morning and says to herself, "Gosh I would really like to prove something using the number 7. That's my favorite number, and I know it must be meaningful in some way, I just need to prove it!"

Instead, successful scientists find the numbers they need by analyzing their data, and comparing to the findings of others. Planck didn't pull ħ out of his a**, just as Cavendish didn't select G for its beauty.

[opportunity (OP)]

The golden ratio (φ) appears in nature.

So do π (often in the form of 2π, aka τ), e, √2, and many other apparently "special" numbers.

As far as I can tell, this just means that geometry is just as "true" in the "real world" as it is on paper.

I don't think that it is fruitful to seek a "theory of everything" by looking for the most "elegant" mathematics. Mathematicians must seek mathematical truth through rigorous logic. Scientists must seek to understand the world around them, by studying the world around them (often using mathematics to frame their theories, but not always). Observation and experimentation necessarily supersede theorization.

No successful scientist wakes up in the morning and says to herself, "Gosh I would really like to prove something using the number 7. That's my favorite number, and I know it must be meaningful in some way, I just need to prove it!"

Instead, successful scientists find the numbers they need by analyzing their data, and comparing to the findings of others. Planck didn't pull ħ out of his a**, just as Cavendish didn't select G for its beauty.

I agree.

Then an invention comes along that uses all of the above, and then we have to take note of that song. If I had worked an invention out using only part of the whole thing, I think I would hold back and wait till it was completely harmonic. I don't know why. Maybe because I want to find the real harmonic of everything first if there is one before trying to prove parts?