The History of the Golden Ratio

Phi (Golden Ratio) as a mysterious number has been discovered in many places, such as art, architectures, humans, and plants. You might wonder where and when Phi first appeared? Who was the discoverer? According the history of mathematics, Phi was first understood and used by the ancient mathematicians in Egypt, two to three thousand years ago, due to its frequent appearance in Geometry. Phidias (500BC-432 BC), a Greek sculptor and mathematician, studied Phi and used the Phi in many designs of his sculptures, such as the statue of the goddess Athena in Athena, and the state of god Zeus in Olympiad. And Euclid Alexandria (365BC-300BC) had once described the Phi as "dividing a line in the extreme and mean ratio" in his Book VI of Elements. The name "Golden Ratio" appears in the form sectio aurea (Golden Section in Greek) by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) who used this the Golden ratio in many of his masterpieces, such as The Last Supper and Mona Lisa. In 1900s, an Maerican mathematician named Mark Barr, represented the Golden Ratio by using a greek symbol Φ.

 

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