Saturday, July 28, 2012

The Golden Mean

The individual florets, those yellow dots in the center of the flowers, grow in two spirals extending from the center of the flower. One spiral has 21 arms and the second has 34 arms. Here is a close up of the center of the flower so you can better see the pattern:

These two numbers, 21 and 34 are part of a series of numbers called the Fibonacci series. This ratio is found throughout nature in flowers, pine cones, your body and sea shells, to name a few places. This ratio is called the Golden Mean or Ratio. See Wikipedia:Golden ratio

When you look at a flower, what do you see? I see lots of things.

1 comment:

  1. Enjoyed this post very much. As always, your blog shows me many things. Thank you.

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