Bridges: Mathematical Connections in Art, Music, and Science
Pages 35–44
Abstract
Over the centuries, the Fine Arts have celebrated several special numerical ratios and proportions for their visual dynamics or balance and sometimes for their musical potential. From the golden ratio to the sacred cut, numerical relationships are at the heart of some of the greatest works of Nature and of Western design. This article introduces to interdisciplinary designers three newly-discovered numerical relations and summarizes current knowledge about them. Together with the golden ratio they form a golden family, and though not well understood yet, they are very compelling, both as mathematical diversions and as design elements. They also point toward an interesting geometry problem that is not yet solved. (Some of these ideas also appear in [5] in more technical language.)