![]() ![]() The Cyrillic letter Ef (Ф, ф) descends from phi.Īs with other Greek letters, lowercase phi (encoded as the Unicode character U+03C6 φ GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI) is used as a mathematical or scientific symbol. In traditional Greek numerals, phi has a value of 500 ( φʹ) or 500,000 ( ͵φ). It may be that phi originated as the letter qoppa (Ϙ, ϙ), and initially represented the sound /kʷʰ/ before shifting to Classical Greek. The romanization of the Modern Greek phoneme is therefore usually ⟨f⟩. 4th century AD to 15th century AD) it developed its modern pronunciation as a voiceless labiodental fricative ( ). 4th century BC to 4th century AD), its pronunciation shifted to that of a voiceless bilabial fricative ( ), and by the Byzantine Greek period (c. During the later part of Classical Antiquity, in Koine Greek (c. 9th century BC to 4th century BC), it represented an aspirated voiceless bilabial plosive ( ), which was the origin of its usual romanization as ⟨ph⟩. Golden Meaning is available from ( / f aɪ/ uppercase Φ, lowercase φ or ϕ Ancient Greek: ϕεῖ pheî Modern Greek: φι fi ) is the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet. Golden Meaning is a book which, in my opinion, deserves as much attention from the maths community as it does the arts one. ![]() Both activities are creative, but with different ends. The designers here have played around with numbers, shapes, concepts and patterns for the purposes of visual communication. Mathematicians play around with numbers, shapes, concepts and patterns in order to prove theorems. There are parallels between what mathematicians do and what the contributors to Golden Meaning have done. To see a gallery of some of the images click here: Some have taken seriously the idea that the golden ratio describes beauty, and some have subverted it. The submisions include ideas that I would have expected from graphic designers – such as typefaces, logos, wallpapers – but there are also golden ratio haircuts, baking recipes and sculptures. (And also to make the book a golden rectangle, which is the shape when the height is 1.618 times the width, and to have all the pages printed in gold). Whether or not this is true - and a few serious academics still believe it - the golden ratio links to some wonderful mathematics, such as the Fibonacci sequence: 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34, 55. Since the Renaissance, many people have believed that the golden ratio is the secret of beauty: the idea is that in a beautiful painting or a beautiful face the significant points will be positioned according to the ratio. When a line is divided like this, the whole line is 1.618 times longer than the large section, which is 1.618 times longer than the small section. The line is separated into two sections in such a way that the ratio of the whole line to the largest section is equal to the ratio of the largest section to the smallest section. Many maths books include explanations of the golden ratio, often accompanied by a diagram like this one: I agreed because I thought it would be fun ‘outreach’ helping the graphic design world engage with abstract mathematical ideas.) (Full disclosure: GraphicDesign& asked me to be their ‘maths consultant’ on the project. The results, which are collected in the book Golden Meaning, are fresh, witty and thought-provoking – providing new perspectives on an ancient theme. Kellett’s portraits are the result of a unique cross-disciplinary project, curated by boutique publishers GraphicDesign&, in which 55 of the world’s top graphic designers were asked to communicate the mathematics behind the golden ratio. I love the juxtaposition of these portraits since it makes you reflect on the idea of aesthetic perfection whether or not beauty can ever be prescribed by mathematics. There is something about it that makes him look a bit too perfect – so much so that it is subtly grotesque. Yet the picture on the right is just weird! The golden ratio – or golden mean - is a number that is said to provide the secret of aesthetic beauty. The right one is retouched so that the features of his face conform to the golden ratio. ![]()
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