Is the golden ratio the formula for a beautiful face? | 91TV
Transcript
- NARRATOR: The golden ratio is a mathematical phenomenon
- that can explain everything from tornadoes to the Mona Lisa,
- the pyramids to sunflowers and seashells,
- and why some people are much more attractive than others -
- at least according to thousands of TikTok posts
- and a bunch of entrepreneurial cosmetic surgeons.
- So how did we come to consider this obscure formula
- to be both the secret of life
- and the ultimate standard of beauty?
- Way back in 1202,
- Leonardo of Pisa, also known as Fibonacci,
- wrote a book in which he introduced Europe
- to the Arabic numerals we use today.
- But buried in chapter 12, there was a sequence of numbers
- discovered by the ancient Hindu poet Pingala.
- It goes something like this...
- In this sequence, each new number
- is the sum of the previous two.
- So the first and second numbers
- add up to the third,
- the third and the fourth
- add up to the fifth, and so on.
- Fibonacci explained this progression
- using the example of a field of incestuous rabbits.
- Say we want to draw a rectangle.
- Let's make the length one Fibonacci number
- and the height the next Fibonacci number.
- This is known as the golden rectangle.
- The approximate ratio of the height to the width
- is called the golden ratio, or the golden section.
- The extraordinary thing about this rectangle
- is that if you cut off a perfect square,
- you're left with a smaller rectangle
- of exactly the same proportions.
- Now watch what happens
- when we start cutting out smaller and smaller squares.
- In the 1860s,
- a German psychologist named Gustav Fechner
- showed people a variety of rectangles
- and asked them to pick their favourite.
- He reported that the winner was the golden rectangle.
- And so began the beguiling idea
- that there's a particular proportion
- that is the most beautiful to the human eye.
- And you don't have to look far to see the golden ratio all around us.
- In the head of sunflower seeds,
- there are two sets of interlocking spirals.
- If you count all the spirals going one way,
- you get one Fibonacci number,
- and if you count all the spirals going the other way,
- you'll get the next Fibonacci number.
- But nature is not always so obliging.
- Snails, for example, grow their shells
- at a rate dependent on how much calcium is available,
- not according to the golden ratio.
- There are many spirals in nature,
- and some of them are very mathematically interesting.
- But just because something is a spiral
- does not mean it's a golden spiral.
- Associations between the golden ratio
- and what humans find beautiful may be even more bogus.
- Remember Gustav Fechner's study?
- It was disproved in 1974,
- when University of Toronto professor Michael Godkewitsch
- concluded the reported preference for the golden rectangle
- was due to its position in the range of rectangles.
- More recent studies have found that, given 48 options,
- it is almost impossible to even pick out
- the golden rectangle by eye.
- And despite containing some pretty interesting maths,
- the Parthenon in Athens does not display the golden ratio.
- More concerning are the supposed links
- between the golden ratio and facial beauty,
- which over the past decades have seen a slew of inventions,
- from a golden mask
- which was meant to be the blueprint for the perfect face,
- to more recent grid filters on TikTok
- claiming to test or correct your face according to the golden ratio,
- perpetuating not only unrealistic beauty standards but bad maths, too.
- The idea that one number can explain everything
- from ram's horns and flowers
- to artistic masterpieces and human faces
- is an appealing one
- and speaks to our need to make sense of a chaotic universe.
- The golden ratio is part of an interwoven universe -
- not of ancient art, history and nature,
- but of mathematics and geometry,
- an interwovenness that can be actually proven.
- The good news is, there is no mathematical law
- that defines who is and isn't beautiful.
- Regardless of the golden ratio,
- someone, somewhere thinks you're a total stunner.
The golden ratio is a mathematical formula that appears in nature and may have inspired great works of art and architecture. Some believe it defines facial beauty - but is it all a myth?
Made in partnership with @bbcideas
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