The Golden Ratio by Mario Livio

Author:Mario Livio
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2008-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 56

Figure 57

With the exception of the influential work of Pacioli and the mathematical/artistic interpretations of the painters Leonardo and Dürer, the sixteenth century brought about no other surprising developments in the story of the Golden Ratio. While a few mathematicians, including the Italian Rafael Bombelli (1526–1572) and the Spanish Franciscus Flussates Candalla (1502–1594) used the Golden Ratio in a variety of problems involving the pentagon and the Platonic solids, the more exciting applications had to await the very end of the century.

However, the works of Pacioli, Dürer, and others revived the interest in Platonism and Pythagoreanism. Suddenly the Renaissance intellectuals saw a real opportunity to relate mathematics and rational logic to the universe around them, in the spirit of the Platonic worldview. Concepts like the “Divine Proportion” built, on one hand, a bridge between mathematics and the workings of the cosmos and, on the other, a relation among physics, theology, and metaphysics. The person who, in his ideas and works, exemplifies more than any other this fascinating blending of mathematics and mysticism is Johannes Kepler.

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