Zdragva

BTW Mr SelfDestruct theres actually a thing called 'plancks constant' which actually prohibits anything smaller than a certain size existing, if it does it undergoes plenty of strange effects etc. but do read up a bit, our universe is fractal in nature but it is not A fractal, this means that although we can see signs of fractal patterns in it, it does not endlessly repeat forever in both directions as you imply. (If the universe was totally fractal then any massive object would be made up of infinate numbers of smaller massive objects and even the smallest mass times infinity leads to infinate mass, which is bad in our universe). Also the table for quarks and 'relatives' goes something like this:
Up quark - symbol u - (electron) charge +2/3 - Mass (GeV/c2) 0.33
Down quark - symbol d - charge -1/3 - Mass 0.33 (roughly)
charm quark- sybmol c - +2/3 - 1.58
strange - s - -1/3 - 0.47
top - t - +2/3- 180
bottom - b- -1/3- 4.58
This is the current list of all known and/or predicted quarks in existance, these however are but one group of a whole host of (seemingly) indivisble subatomic particles, including the electron but not the proton or neutron . +2/3 of an electron charge simply means the quark has 2/3rds of the opposite charge to an electron. and GeV/c2 is simply a way of working out mass (M) from E=MC2 and means 'Giga electron Volts divided by the speed of light squared'. the problems with breaking down quarks into 'whatever theyre made from' is that there doesnt appear to be enough energy in creation to crack that particular egg. The big bang itself is supposed to have gone thru a state of being a 'quark plasma' right after the singularity exploded. no one knows what these objects are, why they have these properties they have, or where they came from, only that they seem to be the smallest tangible objects in existance (and there are objects used in science today that 'technically' dont ever exist but still carry out functions, i.e gluons and gravitons). also it would seem that blowing them apart to see whats inside its a definate no as scientists agree that A there are the bottom of the pile of 'things' we call matter, and even if they wernt the kind of power needed is impossible, an if it wasnt impossible it would be fatal to our universe to use it.

OpieCunningham

Ha.

It's this aspect of theoretical science which always makes me laugh.

It's impossible because there is not enough energy and if there happened to be enough energy the universe wouldn't exist ... the smallest part cannot exist because the multiplicative of all the smallest parts would be infinite and therefore larger than the whole ... etc

Sounds an awful lot like saying "God is all powerful" with different words.

And if one more "scientist" tries to tell me that the universe is not infinte in size, I'm going postal.

MSD

I know what planck's constant is, but I've never seen it used as evidence that nothing smaller than a certain particle can exist. I know that the univers isn't a huger fractal, I realize now that I didn't word it very well. What I meant to say is that the universe contains many fractal structures, and therefore anyhting that is a fractal will repeat the patterns of its smallest unit. Even if the quark is the smallest unit, my argument remains the same, sans smaller particles. Your table gave the charge and mass of each quark, but not the relative size. That's where my theory was based. I've never heard it argued that gluons and gravitons don't technically exist, only that they are zero-mass particles. Your last sentence makes little sense, maybe you could explain why the amount of power necessary to split one of these particles would be fatal to the universe.

stingc

Most of the `science` being quoted here is not correct... I don't feel like writing out a long reply, but I'll just say that quarks do not have a size in any usual sense. Quantum "particles" have very little to do with the usual definition of "particle." They're the same in name only. This same thing could be said for most things in modern physics. It's really too hard to explain it without math, so everyone reading popular books ends up misunderstanding.

Zdragva

Right well first of all iv read that IF it was possible to split the quark :P then it would require that mankind can produce more energy than was produced in the big bang to overcome the quarks internal structure strengths (forces if there are any smaller particles) and split it. we're not talking about breaking atoms here, these particles are assumed to be the basis of all matter, now assuming is dangerous i agree, but if these particles are the first out of the big bang, show no signs of being able to exist alone, let alone to be split into compnent parts, and behave as if they are partly in another universe half the time then its going to be very difficult to get inside them, also gluons and gravitons are zero mass particles but the reason i say 'technically' they dont exist is because they are only means of exchanging forces, whether or not they do exist i suppose is up for debate but if they do we will never EVER get any DIRECT evidence for them due to quantum mechanics. As for stingc defining particles, fair enough if he wants a distinction thats up to him, when i think of particles i think of stationary if possible or at least low energy objects (objects meaning things not round balls) and they are pretty easy to describe etc. if they called particles, if you want to get into muliple paths, quantum wave forms or even (curse) subatomic string theory then go ahead. the science might not be correct but if you give me a break its not wrong either and ill be happy to debate long and hard 1v1 with u about current breakthroughs or developments in any area of physics large or small. and on a side note, letting off sources of energy not seen since the most violent event we know of is probably not wise, might not be fatal to the universe, is certainly impossible to let off more energy than exists anyway, there fore it kinda says these objects are the wall if its actually impossible to go any futhrar, supposing of course there is anything smaller, which is doubtful

Mantus

I gota say some of those examples are just pathetic. All they do is pick random parts of an object or animal, in any order, measure it roughly from the horizontal and/or vertical plain then and this is supposed to show us Phi. Well I am convinced!

Lets do this on a person’s face they say. Okay lets pick some points:

- start with the bottom of the chin – obviously.
- somewhere in the middle of the chin.
- bellow the lower lip.
- slightly above the corner of her mouth.
- tip of her nose.
- tip of her eye brows.
- top of her hair.

Oh wow what a coincidence that we got the Fibonacci sequence out of these very specific spots. I am sure if some one else was to pick major reference points on a human face, picking the middle of the chin or slightly above the corner of the mouth would be the first points they would choose.

My favorite is the human body example.

Start with the top of a persons head and just place the first few points at random along the forehead. Then the next one is somewhere between the eyebrows and the eyes. Shouldn’t the point be right on the person’s eyes they ask? Nah. Next point would be somewhere on the nose. After that it would be on the Adam’s apple, then the middle of the chest, somewhere on the abdomen, middle of the thigh, and finally the feet. The wonders of Phi seem to appear everywhere!


Sorry, but it was fun to write

roadkill

To assume that something is created would mean were a science subject at the least, perhaps a toy, those don't fit me well. However to answer your question you require us to find proof against something that we may/may not believe in.

Personally I feel that this shows that there is something out there, what I can't say, however its just as likely to have nothing out there.

At any rate, if there is a divine being he sure is cruel. He puts Phi and makes us like it for a ratio nothing more. Just to sum up my feelings on a perfect god is a quote from Catch-22

"And don't tell me God works in mysterious ways... There's nothing so mysterious about it. He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about - a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain?"

stingc

This is getting off-topic, but I'll respond to some of the quark stuff anyways.

Under current ideas, quarks cannot be split. I think you are referring to separating one quark from another. Our best theories say that this can't be done. It is understood, though, that those ideas break down long before you could throw the "energy of the big bang" into the problem. So if that's what you read, the author just made it up. It makes no sense at all on many levels.

I'm not sure why you think gluons are less "real" than quarks. Neither is observed directly. Yet both of them have consequences that have been confirmed many times over by now. The point I was trying to make in my previous post was that these things are just labels of specific mathematical objects in a specific theory. To say that there is evidence for quarks means that we have confirmed the consequences of a certain theory which contains mathematical objects Gell-Mann decided to call quarks (the ideas have evolved a bit since then without changing names, but my point is the same). Add more interpretation at your own risk.

Gravitons, by the way, are not a part of any accepted theory of physics. They are a hypothesis made by analogy with the other forces (even though gravity is very very different). String theory has them, but that is very far from being a coherent set of ideas, yet alone an accepted one.

Johnny Rotten

I think it's safe to say that Phi is a real and prevalent constant. That does not, however, necessarily extend to mystical possibilities. It means that a successfully structured universe will have a common element, a common number. Planets that can sustain life will have certain common elements as well. Does that mean God exists?

I can find Pi in a hell of a lot more things than Phi, but somehow Phi gets all the attention. Perhaps precisely because it exists above our ability to visibly calculate and thereby "hides" right under our noses.

Order suggests divinity, but it is not evidence.

Journeyman

Yeesh, a bit late to the game, but...

A god that is all powerful and all knowing would be hard pressed to make, say, a married bachelor, or a rock so heavy that he could not lift it. He can't make 2 plus 2 equal 5. Even if the earth and all within was the result of a creator with intent, the abstract concept of the number 2 is, I contend, independent of any deity.

This applies to the Fibbonaci sequence, and the golden ratio. God or not, these numbers are on a level of abstractness that is independent of anything tangible, or intangible:

CSflim

Exactly!

If you measure the diameter of the iris of your eye, and then measure the circumference of the iris, you will find that they are in an exact ratio of 1:pi!
Do we need to ask "what is the evolutionary value of having a ratio of 3.14159...?" Do our genes code for pi? Is this evidence for God?

No! Of course not. The fact is that in creating a circle, pi must logically fall out of it. You get your pi for free.

Similarly when you create a spiral that turns at a constant rate and grows with a constant acceleration (e.g. sea shells) you will get a logarithmic spiral, and phi falls out of this naturally.

__________________

Supersonic

I was going to post something to this effect, but you hit the nail on the head

good job.

pan6467

You know even the great Einstein, an atheist, once said that the universe was so perfectly random that something had to create it.

By the way for oddities in numbers, I found one for 8. No other number can do this.

You take 8 multiply it by anything. Then add the numbers together and multiply 8 by the next number in sequence add the resulting # together and the end product becomes 1 less that the number before.

Example:
8x5=40 4+0=4
8x6=48 4+8=12 1+2=3
8x7=56 5+6=11 1+1 =2
8x8=64 6+4=10 1+0=1
then it starts over
8x9=72 7+2= 9

It continues this process forever. I was driving home from school and it just occurred to me one evening, don't know if there is a true mathematical theorem or word for this phenom but to me it was extremely intriguing and time consuming for the ride home.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

hannukah harry

pan,

9 also does something similar. multiply 9 times any number, and then add combine those numbers until it's only a 1 digit number and you'll always get 9.

9x1 = 9
9*2 = 18,1+8=9
9*3 = 27, 2+7=9
9*4= 36, 3+6=9
...
9*10=90, 9+0 = 9
9*11=99, 9+9=18, 8+1=9
9*12=108, 1+0+8=9
...
9*63=567, 5+6+7=18, 1+8=9

and on and on...

__________________
shabbat shalom, mother fucker! - the hebrew hammer

pan6467

That I knew, learned in grade school that's how you know if 3,6,or 9 are divisible into a #. If the number ends and it is a 3,6,or 9 then 3 goes into it, even 6 would and if it adds to 9, 9 would. 4 is always the same last 2 digits like 1024. 2 always even, 5 = 5 or 0 end digit in number,

The thing with the 8 tho is perfectly unique, no other number does it. 7 doesn't follow a pattern, no other number follows a perfectly descending pattern in such a way, at least not that I know of. It's just an oddity that like I said I played with one night on my drive home and found it amazing.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

filtherton

I don't think this is any more significant than the fact that an object's acceleration is a derivative of its velocity which is a derivative of its position in a coordinate plane. Or any more significant than the fact that gravity exists. There is limitiless supply of things to point at and wonder, "Why the fuck is that like that?". When it comes down to it, there are many things that humans will never be able to explain with anything more than, "because that is the way it is". Besides, if one is going to marvel at the natural world, there are many things way more compelling in the argument for the existence of a diety than the golden ratio.

Dbass

The simplest answer to the mystery of Phi can be summed up by something Prot said in K-Pax. He said that species on a given planet take the form that most effeciently uses the resources available. Therefore, he resembled a human on Earth so as to most effeciently take in oxygen, walk, etc. If you really think about it, there are thousands of factors that act upon all beings on earth. There is atmospheric pressure, a constant equilibrium vapor pressure, photons from the sun, nitrogen-rich atmospheric conditions, to name a few. The logical result of these constants would be evolution in favor of organisms that deal best with them. Of course, it is the human system of math that makes this commonality a number, but if numerals were not even applied here, there would still exist a natural common property amongst all beings that was the direct influence of their atmospheric constants.

analog

As a religious person, I would say that no scientific oddity is any proof of the existence of a deity- it is simply proof that we do not yet know everything there is to know, not by a long shot. What we ponder over today will be child's play tomorrow.


Consider the thoughts of the first "doctor" to realize that bloodletting was NOT an effective means of curing what ailed people, and that sneezing will NOT encourage demonic possession (*achoo!* bless you.) Hell, there are still MANY places on this planet where the people from it would shit themselves if they ever saw a TV, or a picture of themselves. Some groups still believe that a picture taken of you steals your soul. Bow before your new God, my Olympus D-360 digital camera!!

Tinker

Loved that movie... great soundtrack too!!!!!!

__________________
"The man who alters his way of thinking to suit others is a fool."
Marquis de SADE

Autochron

Well said, Zdragva.

I'm a little sick of people looking at X or Y and saying "This is evidence of a Divine Creator". I might as well say, "This is evidence of the Great Alien Phi Conspiracy". But I seem to be discredited in the popular discourse, so I guess I'm wrong

__________________
I've been given the mushroom treatment -- kept in the dark and fed sh*t.

Zdragva

Well i wasnt referring to parting quarks from others i was refering to splitting a quark into its component parts. Now i dont know all things about all areas of physics but there is a way physicists can 'factor up' if u will, he amount of energy required to split it, its something to do with the amount of energy it contains or the energy required to split apart an object orders of magnitude lighter or less energetic or whatever im not sure. basiclly to get an object of any mass to high enough a velocity to split a quark would require crazy amounts of energy, again im not sure on the exact details but better mathematicians than I (infact mathameticians considered the best there is) have speculated it would require a larger input of energy than exists. as for quarks not being able to exist alone this is true, however... proton-proton collisions at a large enough velocity have shown that after the collision u get 2 protons out, momentum is NOT conserved but a new particle appears, after doing all the sums all the mass/energy balances and no laws are actually broken, what is THEORIZED to happen is that 'whatever' makes up one proton collides with part of whatever makes up another proton, this mystery object is flung out of one proton, something happens and the original proton regains this mystery object and a new object appear (look up pi meson or other strange objects) ill now explain in detail, ASSUMIG quarks do exist, what happens. 3 quarks are flung towards 3 other quarks, one quark from each proton collides, one quark gets flung out of a proton, as it travels furthar and furthar the strong force between the quark and its old companions gains energy and forms what is called a flux tube, a region of high energy/large force whatever, this flux tube continues to gain strength and be streched (now im not good enough to explain the science on the next bit) the flux tube 'breaks' and forms a quark-anti quark pair. the new quark from the flux tube returns to the proton and all is well with it, the anti quark pairs with the originally flung quark and forms a very short lived meson. which then decays or rather annihilates into energy. i do not have the material at hand to describe HOW the meson is observed ill leave that to you guys to accept ur scientists arnt lying. this shows that protons arnt fundamental and are in fact made up of smaller objects. Points here are A: one of the protons travells close to lightspeed before collision (how fast must something travel to split a quark????) B: quarks are observed just not alone but as part of a particle anti particle pair for a short time. C: although momentum appear to not be conserved amongst the protons they arnt fundamental and therefore once ALL things are considered laws arnt brken. As for qluons, well they dont form particles, they are at best fluctuations of the strong forcei gluons are to the strong force what photons are to light. light can travel, well forever technically, given enough time infinate distances, strong force acts over a distance smaller than an atomic nucleus, its the reason that ur positive protons dont fly away from each other due to electrostactic repulsion (ever wonder about that?) without the strong force (which appears to apply only to quarks) there would be NO nuclei. the fact we exist is evidence for objects smaller than protons (scientists call them quarks) objects like these dont have a 'size' size is irrelevent they are quantum sizes, i gather a quark is at the planck length. btw if the planck length is the absolute smallest anything can be im puzzled to see how u can get anything smaller. an object at planck scale has no size, its the starting point for all larger sizes to be measured. its a bit like asking what is smaller than the smallest possible division of time. heres another point about objects at these sizes, recent research has said that objects of a certain type (dont give me grief im not arguing im stating what iv heard/read) like single atoms can be placed in a single quantum wavelength, i.e in the space taken up by a single atom u can place infinate numbers of the same atom, in the space reserved in the universe for usually one object u can put infinate numbers as long as they are unable to be distinguished. this is something i read not some thing i know to be a fact but its interesting, quantum wavelength sized blackholes someone said, but we as a species arnt close to that. yet

Zdragva

"Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome."
-George Bush Sr.
-Brent Snowcroft
Filtherton funny how u can say that after Saddam used the nukes on the west he would have sold to al-quaida had Iraq been invaded. Weird how any americans can speak after the 3rd world war, which occured due to the fact no one acted fast enough, and now USA is a barren land and europe is now at war with the uprisen masses of asia and africa after decades of doing nothing.

dude there is no proof of WMD, so there never was any? if i was Saddam and i knew i couldnt win the stalemate and keep power and i had any weapons id give them to the ppl most likely to use them after i was deposed. Is it going to take a nuclear weapon going off in ur back yard before u can say, 'ah maybe we just couldnt find them'

Zdragva

also if i was persuing a 'Jihad' i would do my best to win as its by holy determination we have to win. How can a group of terrorists hope to destory western society with a few terrorist acts? no dude. These guys arnt stupid. If i was al-quaida main dude, or if i was trying to bring about the end of the most powerful group of nation ever i would wait until it was possible to win before starting my main attack. These attacks in Spain etc. are nothing more than shows to any western haters that there is still something in the works, i would wait untill my enemy was at its weakest before launching my main assault. The war on terror has started, it is not over, it is a real war. who know if invading iraq is the right thing to do? he was a merciless brutal murderer, he was hoping to make horrific weapons at the very least. many people, not just those in the middle east want the end of the current way of the world. Because nothing of any size has been found if i was President id take the view this means someone else has them, to think otherwise is dangerous, if u think they dont exist and they do that is far worse than thinking they do exist when they dont. Point is western media wants to sell scandal, that is all, when u turn on the tv and see PM ridiculed over WMD that just means they have found something else to rave about its NEVER the truth. Use ur own eyes ur own ears and think, these terrorists face the most unwinnable fight in the history of mankind, and they think there god has told them to win, there going to read every war book, dude ffs these guys are crazy, we all know that, yet most of the west is more concerned about tearing their own governments to shred, if these WMD do exist then WE, me and you, are the targets, dont forget that when u laugh at bush or you rage about the unfairness of the war.

zen_tom

If Phi is a number generated from a sequence of addition, then any system that builds itself from many particles operating under rules of interaction, will unavoidably generate the ratio you describe (which is probably just another way of saying what Zdragva said at the end of page 1). Hence galaxies, hurricanes, life the universe and everything.

This is fascinating, beautiful, awe-inspiring and deeply meaningful, however, I'd use this argument in order to help *disprove* the intervention of any higher concience. You see, this bootstrapping model totally removes the need for any designer because the pieces self assemble (and it is the self-assembly that produces the ratio you describe)

tiberry

I second that- Exactly!

Just because we've mathematically ascribed a numerical ratio to things that we can observe; that is - devised a measurement device that returns a somewhat unexpected and seemingly fascinating result, doesn't any more prove the existence of a 'divine being' or some unexplainable 'order' in the universe any more than me declaring that I'm God...unless of course you contest that math is divine.

__________________
My life's work is to bridge the gap between that which is perceived by the mind and that which is quantifiable by words and numbers.

thefictionweliv

From your point of view Phi is evidence of the divine. So to quote from the common religious medium of the Bible it is said that we are "created in his image". Now this is a God that is held to be perfect. You are either perfect or you aren't there is no inbetween, now waivering, no flaws, nothing. If this was the image or link to a perfect creator you would think that it would be a single number and not about 1.6 to 1.7.

livingfossil

There's likely some link between physical (i.e. in physics, not biological) forces' interaction and the way the ratio falls. It is by no means an argument for a creator. Rather, it would seem to demonstrate the universal nature of physical force.

But, I am not a physicist, so I am not going to bother outlining (incorrectly) how that would work.

Nevertheless, I'd advise you to take your inquisition not to religion, but to some of the recent 'theories of everything.' It'd likely be more fruitful.

__________________
Never anything witty.

livingfossil

Eh, that's absurd and tendetious. "Perfection" is in no way necessarily an interger.

But, for that matter, "divinity" is in no way phi.

__________________
Never anything witty.

mtb_chris

I find the number 1 to have just as many "divine" qualities. Take ANY NUMBER, divide it by itself, and you ALWAYS get ONE! Such beautiful consistency in nature clearly points to a higher being. I'm sure that if you got out the measuring tape you could find lots of 1:1 ratios on plants and animals.

Mathematics, in all its beauty, is an abstraction. Without man, there are no ratios.

thefictionweliv

I wasn't saying it was, I was actually refuting the idea that phi was evidence of such.

Master_Shake

Don't be stupid, everyone knows that 42, not phi, is the answer to life, the universe and everything.

__________________
-------------
You know something, I don't think the sun even... exists... in this place. 'Cause I've been up for hours, and hours, and hours, and the night never ends here.

alansmithee

Math is teh suck.

Nachtwolf

No, it is a necessary consequence of the way Phi is defined:

http://www.mcs.surrey.ac.uk/Personal...html#simpledef

One definition of Phi (the golden section number) is that to square it you just add 1, or, in mathematics: Phi^2 = Phi + 1


Phi is also defined geometrically, but this definition is mathematically equivalent to the above:


http://www.dace.co.uk/proportion_child.htm

Phi is defined as the proportion that results when a line is divided into two unequal parts, such that the ratio between the whole and the larger part is equal to the ratio between the larger and the smaller part.


Visually, this definition can be represented thus:

A---------B-----C

Where the line AB is 1 unit, and where where AC/AB = AB/BC, and both ratios equal Phi:

Phi = AC/AB = AB/BC

Since AB is 1, and BC is AC-AB, we can rewrite this as

Phi = AC/1 = 1/(AC-1)

and then since Phi = AC/1 we can substitute Phi for AC and get

Phi = 1/(Phi-1)

Multiplying everything by (Phi-1) and rearranging terms quickly gives

Phi^2 = Phi + 1

Which says exactly that "Phi is the number which, when squared, equals itself plus one." The long and the short of it is that there is absolutely nothing even remotely amazing or surprising about the fact that Phi squared is Phi +1, or that 1/Phi is Phi-1; that's what Phi means.


Judging by your interest in Phi, you would love the movie pi - you just have to understand that the people who made it are idiots, and have no idea that what they are actually talking about throughout the entire film is Phi, not pi. The characters are always making Fib. spirals out of Go beads and whatnot, so while you're watching it, every time someone says "pi," just translate it into "Phi."


I do think God probably exists, but your argument is spurious, Rekna. That constants such as Phi or e do exist in nature doesn't necessarily mean that God put them there. It is interesting to speculate as to why they are there, but just because we have no definitive naturalistic explanation doesn't mean there is no naturalistic explanation. This line of argument...

"X is unexplained. Therefore, X must be caused by God"

...is relatively easy to refute - there were many unexplained things in the past which have now been explained, such as the appearance of bacteria in sealed containers or the existence of live on earth, and their explanations do not invoke God. If God didn't cause previously unexplained things, why should we think that God caused presently unexplained things?

That stated, there are mathematical arguments out there which do suggest the existence of a God, and I worked out one of them myself at this page:

http://www.childrenofmillennium.org/philosophy.htm --> Math & God

That seems like the kind of argument you would enjoy, Rekna.


Ahhhh. Agnostics see things so clearly.


No - there could just as easily be dozens of set ratios that come up more often than others (and, in fact, there are).


Oh ho ho mistar smaertym an thinsk he si too smaert for teh mahtematics!!111 Shtu up fag0t yuo aer too stpuid to talks abuot maht yuoo probaly spedn all yuor tiem playing Quaek I LOL so in concluison GO FUKC A BAN DSAW!!!!1


--Mark

Suave

I see dead people!

-joke removed, just in case -

xepherys

The answer to Life, the Universe and Everything is 42.

As for Phi... well, there's a problem with the randomness of the "divine ratio". Let's take, for instance, the number 2.

Most animals have 2 eyes, 2 ears and two nostrils. Bipedal creatures each have 2 arms and 2 legs. Most male mammals have two testes. Birds have two wings, many fish have two gills. Humans are born with two lungs.

If I take a pie, and slice it in half, there are 2 pieces. If I slice it in half the other way, each of the 2 original pieces now have 2 pieces.

Reproduction requires male and female counterparts... two creatures in all (in most cases, of course).

2 is the "number of opposites". Night and Day, Good and Evil, Tall and Short, Wise and Ignorant, Wide and Narrow, White and Black, Here and There.

Stereo requires exactly 2 sounds sources. And since stereo sounds better than mono, perhaps 2 is the "audiophile number" as well.


I'm sure I could go on for a great length. Phi is just haphazard luck in most mathemeticians books.

Nachtwolf

I like this thread, and I'm bumping it.

fckm

Hey guys. I recently found out a wonderful thing called the Color Red. The color red occurs around the 600-700nm range of the electromagnetic spectrum.

What's incredible about Red is that it appears everywhere!!

Red is everywhere in Nature. Animals and plants use it to warn of dangerous toxins. There are Stars that give off Red light. Heck, even Mars looks Red!

People also use the Color Red. We use it to paint cars, dye our clothing. Even our blood is Red!

Wow guys! Look at how pervasive the Color Red is in the Universe! This can't possibly be a coincidence! I personally think that the Color Red indicates that there's something else out there. After all, this is simply too much of a coincidence to be random!

__________________
And if you say to me tomorrow, oh what fun it all would be.
Then what's to stop us, pretty baby. But What Is And What Should Never Be.

1010011010

Considering the geometric determination involves dividing a length Z into two sections X and Y, such that Y=X+n, n=1 and the ratio of X:Y::Y:Z. This "strange thing" you're pointing out is that X and X+n differ by exactly one when n=1. Oooooooh.

Furthermore, the Fibonacci sequence is basically a integral math implementation of the geometric proof for proportionally larger values of Z and n (I.E. when you divide the system by n, thereby returning to n=1, you get a progressively closer approximation of the golden ratio for larger values of Z). The math is kinda cool, but there's nothing mystical about it.

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Simple Machines in Higher Dimensions

Nachtwolf

While I agree with everything else in your post (having written it myself earlier in the thread), this does not follow. This is similar to the atheist's argument which says "Thomas Aquinas' arguments in favor of God are false. Therefore, God does not exist." Just because Aquinas' arguments were spurious does not mean there is no God; by the same token, the fact that Phi^2 = Phi+1 is just a consequence of the definition of Phi doesn't mean that "there's nothing mystical about it." As a matter of fact, there are defenite curiosities related to Phi, and the most noteworthy of these is the underlying relationship between Phi and human aesthetics.

For instance, our wallets are designed to accomodate credit cards shaped like golden rectangles. Several famous buildings, including the Parthenon and Notre Dame cathedral, were designed based on Phi. And as you may be aware, our music is Phi-based; the musical scale is based on a Fibonacci progression. The question is, why do human beings find this so universally apealing?

Before dismissing this as merely a spurious product of human culture, consider this article:


Neanderthal Flute

For randomness to produce such an object as was actually found, to match a possible do-re-mi-fa flute, the probability would be only about 1 chance in 7 million.


In other words, the best information at my disposal tells me that the Neanderthals were playing Phi-based music. This is not a consequence of the way Phi is defined, and while it is far indeed from proving God's existence, it definitely provides us with a mystery.


--Mark

1010011010

I've had no luck finding a specific page I remember (and you'll see why if you search for "phi harmonic") but there are some very straightforward reasons why harmonic systems based on Phi outperform non-harmonic systems or systems based on some other harmonic. It's turtles all the way down. That X and X+1 differ by 1 is no more interesting than more stable systems remaining stable longer than less stable systems.

__________________
Simple Machines in Higher Dimensions