1.618…Does that number ring a bell? Here’s an illustration of it:
Beautiful, right? I knew you’d think so. If you’re not convinced, here’s another picture of it:
Still not convinced? Too bad, it’s beautiful whether you like it or not.
Okay, maybe third time’s a charm:
Ah, that’s better. Now everyone agrees. It’s beautiful.
1.618… to 1 is a ratio. A “Golden Ratio.” Even more than that, it’s a proportion, and it’s beautiful. I know so, because God has filled his creation with it, and He doesn’t make junk. From the minutest DNA double-helix, to the most grandiose, spiral galaxy imaginable, God has knit His universe with a stitch that is just over 1.618 times as wide as it is long.
That’s another cool thing about it. It’s not 1.618 exactly. God shows us glorious things, but He also helps us remember that we are but clay. It’s an “irrational number”, meaning that it’s not the ratio of two integers. It’s like π. You know, the circumference of a circle divided by it’s diameter, which equals 3.14 et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It’s also like the hypotenuse of a right triangle with two, 1 unit legs. What could be simpler than that, right? What could be simpler than the square root of a little, bitty number like 2?
The Golden Ratio, Pi, and the square root of two are all infinitely incommensurate gaps in an infinitely dense number line. Go figure. We’re not God. We will never reach the end of His spoken world, nor ever plumb its depths. After all,
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:4-7)
At the same time, man, created in God’s image, was able to blast a tube of metal into the heavens with living people inside, intersect the orbit of the moon, enter its orbit, land on that great, big hunk of cheese, go for a stroll, ride a very heavy dune buggy, collect some rocks, then re-launch to make their return trip to earth, and survive. That’s beautiful. How did we do that with all these irrational numbers floating around?
We can do great and beautiful things because we, and everything in creation, were created by the God who is One and Three. One God, Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is the One and the Many. He is Unity and Diversity. He is Universal and Particular. He likes to count, so He made us counters. He likes to measure, so He made us measurers. He likes beautiful things, so He made us beautiful, and He made us beautifiers.
In my life, I want to take baby steps towards God’s masterpiece, but I want my sons and daughters to take bigger steps, maybe even run toward God’s masterpiece. Not because they’re in any hurry, but because the breeze feels so nice on their faces. I want them to mature and bear fruit, so I’m endeavoring to teach them to recognize beauty when they see it, hear it, taste, smell, and touch it. Then later, perhaps even without measuring they will incorporate proportions in their lives that mirror God’s objective beauty. Godly proportions in their character and service, as well as their artifacts. I want them to recognize beauty even when it looks like this:
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144…
Here’s my son, Seth, presenting his math memory work, which doubles as his primer in aesthetics:
Here’s some links to help explain the many, many things I left unsaid in this brief post:
http://www.biblicalchristianworldview.net/documents/IncommensuratesFibonacci.pdf
http://www.biblicalchristianworldview.net/documents/ringAesthetics.pdf
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