Talk:Golden Ratio Exploration

Instructor Notes

The Golden Ratio has a long history of mystical and aesthetic connections, many of which are completely unscientific. Don't take this material too seriously. For example, the navel question dates to the early 1900's with work by Jay Hambidge, reported in Matila Ghyka's The Geometry of Art and Life (pp 16,97), and dismissed by H.E Huntley in The Divine Proportion (pg 62) as work of "cranks". Even Huntley's work is full of dubious or now repudiated claims. In particular, the navel question, while possibly true in some loose sense for western physiques, is untested (and probably wrong) for non-westerners, and in fact could be read as a bigoted attempt to justify western body types as aesthetically superior. This makes for entertaining class discussion.