Is there a divine proportion in nature?

Is there a divine proportion or ratio in nature that, somehow, we intuitively recognize as being right or pleasing?

This idea is not new but actually can be traced back to antiquity. The ancient Greeks believed it was discovered by Pythagoras and the 'father of Geometry' Euclid - a Greek mathematician is attributed with the first known recording of the ratio in writing.

Renaissance artists have applied this divine relationship in their works as have architects and all manner of designers including web designers for page layouts.

If you have a business card in your pocket take it out now and check the rectangle. Measure the long side and the short side and you will find a standard card conforms very closely to this ratio.

We see rectangles everywhere.

Some studies suggest most people prefer objects which conform to the Golden ratio but computer screen resolutions do not seem to conform to this divine ratio though we spend so much time staring at them and the trend is for them to be getting further away (not closer) to the ratio as computer users prefer bigger screens above 1024X768 (whose ratio is 1.3333...) See http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

However, on the other hand, layouts and spaces on the webpages displayed on screens may (more often than not?) display the proportions as web designers use this ratio for object positioning on pages.

The rectangle conforming to the Golden ratio has been used extensively by artists, designers and architects.

So what is it exactly?

It is a number like Pi (which you might remember from your days working out the area of a circle).

Known as Phi (which is a letter in the Greek alphabet), the number is approximately 1.6180339887... and when you divide this number into one (its inverse) you get the number less one. That is 1.6180339887...-1 or 0.6180339887...

That is in itself a weird coincidence and the following number sequence 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987 ...named after Leonardo Fibonacci also holds a surprising and relevant outcome.

The sequence is built by adding the number that is the sum of the two preceding it. In other words, any number in the sequence is the sum of the two before.

As you move further along this sequence the previous number divided by the one that comes after it will get closer and closer to the divine ratio (1.6180339887...)

Fibonacci was an Italian mathematician of the 13th century and famous for spreading the word about using Arabic numerals instead of Roman numerals in his Liber Abaci (1202) and the Fibonacci sequence named after him is often mentioned with the Golden ratio.

Lastly, if you divide the width of the right column on this hub into the width of the column you are reading (on the left) what do you get?

It was pretty close (1.712) when I tried it.

And how about this...how close to 1.6180338667... is the ratio between the hubs you have written and your followers? Come On!

Mine...2.5135...I better get a wriggle on!