The Golden Section of the Universe. φ — The Number of God

Mario Livio — a world-renowned astrophysicist, science popularizer, author of more than 400 scientific articles and popular science books that have made significant theoretical contributions to various topics ranging from cosmology, supernova explosions and black holes to exoplanets and the... origin of life in the Universe. This mysterious number, which mathematicians denote by the letter φ, has been called many things: the golden section, the Number of God, and the divine proportion. It plays an extremely important role in the geometry of living nature and in human creations, it is embedded in the foundations of works of painting, sculpture, and architecture, and moreover — adventure novels are dedicated to it! But is such fame deserved? What is true and what is not quite, what is the history of the golden section in science and culture, and what has caused such interest in a simple geometric relationship is what Mario Livio set out to explore. The unique investigation led to unexpected results…