golden-ratio

A single number — 1.618 — is claimed to appear in sunflowers, seashells, and the Mona Lisa. Some of that is real math. Most of it is myth. Here's how to tell the difference.

Sunflowers, nautilus shells, pinecones, and galaxies — the Fibonacci sequence seems to appear everywhere in nature. Some of it is real mathematics; some is pattern-matching wishful thinking. Here's the honest story.