New from the
Oscar-winning producer,
director, and screenwriter
of “A Beautiful Mind” –
Oscar-winning producer,
director, and screenwriter
of “A Beautiful Mind” –
“The Divine Proportion…
is an irrational number and
the positive solution
of the quadratic equation
x2 – x – 1 = 0,
which is (1+Sqrt(5))/2,
about 1.618034.
about 1.618034.
The Greek letter ‘phi’
(see below for the symbol)
is sometimes used
to represent this number.”
For another approach to
the divine proportion, see
“The rogue’s yarn that will run through much of the material is the algebraic symmetry to which the name of Galois is attached and which I wanted to introduce in as concrete and appealing a way as possible….
Apart from its intrinsic appeal, that is the reason for treating the construction of the pentagon, and our task today will be to acquire some feel for this construction. It is not easy.”
— R. P. Langlands, 1999 lecture (pdf) at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, in the spirit of Hermann Weyl