The Golden Section: Nature's Greatest Secret (Wooden Books) [Hardcover]

Scott Olsen (Author), Scott Olson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Wooden Books | Publication Date: October 17, 2006

A concise and useful handbook on the Golden Section--also known as the Golden Ratio and Golden Mean. The Golden Section is a line segment divided into two parts, such that the ratio of the short portion to the longer portion is equal to the ratio of the longer portion to the whole. It is one of the most elegant and beautiful ratios of the mathematical universe because of its combination of elegance and simplicity--hence the divine nature of its name. Drawing on art, architecture, philosophy, nature, mathematics, geometry, and music--and beautifully illustrated in the Wooden Books fashion with all manner of images--The Golden Section will tell the story of this remarkable construct and its wide ranging impact on civilization and the natural world.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dr. Olsen is one of the leading experts on the Golden Section, and an Associate

Professor of Philosophy at Central Florida Community College in Ocala, Florida.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company; First Printing edition (October 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802715397
• ISBN-13: 978-0802715395
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #63 in Books > Science & Math > History & Philosophy

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful Numerology, March 11, 2007

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Golden Section: Nature's Greatest Secret (Wooden Books) (Hardcover)

One of the most famous and mysterious of numbers is pi, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. If you know some mathematics and work with logarithms, you know another important constant, e. Less well known is the number phi (the Greek symbol looks like a capital I superimposed on an o); it is in many ways simpler than the other two and is just as interesting. All you have to do is take a line segment of any length, and put a point on the line so that the point divides the line into a big segment and a little one, and so that the little segment is to the big segment as the big segment is to the line you started with. The section you made, and the connected mathematics and art, are described and illustrated in _The Golden Section: Nature's Greatest Secret_ (Walker Books) by Scott Olsen, which ought to get an award for the book with the greatest density of information in the smallest package. It has but 58 small pages, and half of those are taken up with illustrations (which are wonderfully selected ). But if you follow the pages, and have pencil, paper, and a calculator beside you, there are depths here that bigger books never touch.

It's not too interesting to put a point directly in the middle of a line. You get equal segments that way, or a ratio of one to one, or 1:1; and if a segment is 1, the whole line you bisected is 2, a ratio of 2:1. Plato knew, though, that that was one point that would divide the whole line into shorter and longer portions so that "the whole to the longer equals the longer to the shorter"; or if shorter is a, longer is b, and the whole is a + b, then a + b is to b as b is to a; in symbols, a + b : b as b : a, or a + b : b : a. The ratio is phi (pronounced "fye"). It's numerical equivalent is 1.6180339... (the ellipsis indicating its never-ending nature). There are plenty of surprising properties of this number, some of which you can find on your calculator. For instance, divide phi into one, and you get 0.6180339..., which is exactly one less than phi itself. If you square phi, you get 2.6180339..., which is exactly one more than phi itself. Phi shows up closely related to the Fibonacci Sequence, a series of numbers that shows up all over nature. Rectangles based on phi show up in architecture and art and even music.

"Because of its aesthetic qualities, embodied in its unique ability to relate the parts to the whole," writes Olsen, "golden ratios are used in the design of many modern household items." Credit cards, for instance, are very close to the 8 by 5 Fibonacci approximation of phi. Surely no one ever designed the first credit cards to reflect phi, but the ratio does seem to be inherently attractive. Olsen demonstrates that phi shows up in spirals of DNA, in human proportions, in icosahedrons, and so many other places. His handsome and accessible book is an exercise in an appealing numerology.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A really wonderful book, October 18, 2006

By 

John Martineau "John Martineau" (Glastonbury UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Golden Section: Nature's Greatest Secret (Wooden Books) (Hardcover)

The Golden Section is a subject many have tried and failed to cover comprehensively. Generally these books either over-romanticize the subject and fail scientifically, or they tend instead to be over mathematical and run scared from the genuine (and still unexplained) mystery of why the Golden Section appears so widely in nature.
Scott Olsen's little book admirably steers a middle course through these choppy waters, covering everything from Lucas numbers and phyllotaxis to the common use of the 8:5 Fibonacci approximation to the Golden Section in nature and the visual arts.
I heartily recommend this book to anyone - from those with just a passing interest in the Golden Section like painters and musicians to more experienced mathematicians (check out for instance Bryson's extraordinary equations for the Solar Year on the back page!). It is an excellent book, beautifully produced and wonderfully illustrated. I'm giving it 5 stars.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars excellent ideas; illustrations rendered too small, February 22, 2008

By 

David P. (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Golden Section: Nature's Greatest Secret (Wooden Books) (Hardcover)

I loved the ideas, concepts, and relationships explained in the text, however, I was disappointed with the design and layout of the book. Books in this series seem to be intended as quick, entertaining, and beautiful overviews of their respective topics. This book succeeds on the first two measures, but falls short of beautiful. Several of the illustration pages are black background with faint white artwork and small text - tough to read. Many of the illustrations have notations with text so small one needs a magnifying glass. Several of the concepts are presented with many small illustrations crowding the page instead of one illuminating example shown large. Overall, the book was not as pleasing as other excellent works in the series such as "Sacred Geometry" and "Platonic and Archimedian Solids."