The Golden Ratio

The Golden Ratio, also known as the Golden Number or the Golden Section, is defined as the ratio of the lengths of the two sides of any Golden Rectangle. That is, if you take a Golden Rectangle and divide the length by the height, you will have the Golden Ratio. Traditionally, mathematicians have denoted the Golden Ratio by the Greek letter phi ().

So how can we find these lengths that we need to calculate the Golden Ratio? In other words, what is the numerical value of y/x in the above diagram? We can easily calculate the exact value of the Golden Ratio with a little algebra. To see how, check out the Proof page.