Timeline for What is the 'Golden Ratio' and why is it better than the 'Rule of Thirds?'
Current License: CC BY-SA 2.5
14 events
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| Mar 2, 2014 at 1:38 | comment | added | Tony | Tom Cruise is not beautiful. | |
| S Feb 19, 2011 at 15:25 | history | suggested | Carl Manaster | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
typographical error
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| Feb 19, 2011 at 15:01 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Feb 19, 2011 at 15:25 | |||||
| Feb 19, 2011 at 9:27 | comment | added | zzzzBov | The golden ratio exists in nature as often as faces in inanimate objects. When you're looking for something, there is a tendency to find it, whether or not it's actually there. | |
| Feb 19, 2011 at 5:48 | comment | added | PLL | There’s a lovely recent book “The Golden Ratio” by Mario Livio, in my opinion the best of the Golden Ratio books I’ve read. It takes quite a skeptical approach, and debunks some of the common claims — but that, to me, make the many fascinating things which remain all the more impressive and beautiful — knowing that they really do stand up to a lot of careful scrutiny. | |
| Feb 19, 2011 at 5:46 | comment | added | PLL | And the golden ratio happens to lie within that general range. So does 1 1/2; so does √2; so do many other mathematically interesting numbers. Within that general range, the golden ratio doesn’t actually stand out as any more common than the numbers around it — or at least that’s what people who’ve try to make unbiased collections of the data always find. When one goes in looking for the golden ratio, it’s easy to subconsciously cherry-pick your rectangles: eg on the Parthenon, there are choices like how many steps to include, etc. [cont’d] | |
| Feb 19, 2011 at 5:39 | comment | added | PLL | @Nick: but I think the point is, it doesn’t occur in nature (nor in art, nor music, nor probably in your photography) nearly as much as the myth can lead us to think. There are a few examples in nature (eg phyllotaxis) where it’s been plausibly demonstrated that the golden ratio itself — that exact value — really is significant. But for many of the claimed examples, its apparent presence is largely selection bias. It’s clear that there’s a range of numbers around that value which are objectively aesthetically preferable, and are statistically common in art. [cont’d] | |
| Feb 19, 2011 at 5:04 | comment | added | Nick Bedford | I agree, but I'm simply saying that the golden ratio is something that is tangibly there throughout nature, despite the fact it's just a seemingly random number. I seem to frame my shots on the golden section / spiral without thinking a lot of the time. This is my own style, but I think it's fascinating that it coincides with a frequently occurring ratio in nature. | |
| Feb 19, 2011 at 5:00 | comment | added | Matt Grum | @Nick the point is it's nothing to do with the golden ratio itself, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a ratio of 1:1.618 and a ratio of 1:1.6, or 1:1.5 for that matter. It turns out something being three times bigger than something else looks pleasing, this has nothing to do with the solution to 1/x = x - 1 | |
| Feb 19, 2011 at 2:06 | comment | added | Nick Bedford | I'm with lindes. Regardless of the fact that I know about the Golden Ratio, I do very much find composition utilising it to be more pleasing than not. A lot of the time, I find the golden ratio balances the subject matter in the frame much better than if it's just composed without any thought. | |
| Feb 18, 2011 at 23:50 | history | edited | Matt Grum | CC BY-SA 2.5 |
added 31 characters in body
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| Feb 18, 2011 at 22:14 | comment | added | lindes | Picking a nit: The ratio, per se, is not a myth. It has a precise mathematical definition, and very much exists - if only as an abstract mathematical concept. The universality of its application could certainly be said to have achieved mythical proportions, though. | |
| Feb 18, 2011 at 20:38 | comment | added | zzzzBov | It's "golden" largely because it's so imprecise. Get "close" (with very large error bars) to the golden ratio, take a lot of pictures, find one that looks nice, and proudly proclaim that it's because you followed the golden ratio (rather than the subject being in focus, or the color quality). | |
| Feb 18, 2011 at 19:15 | history | answered | Matt Grum | CC BY-SA 2.5 |