Archive for the ‘Geometry’ Category

Phi: It’s everywhere you look

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

Phi, also known as the golden ratio or the divine proportion, is one of the great mathematical constants. It is equal to a little more than 1.6 and is a most interesting irrational (but not transcendental) number. Phi has a fascinating connection with the Fibonacci series, it can be derived ...

A picture is worth …

Monday, October 8th, 2007

How many of you remember doing geometry proofs in High School? How many of you enjoyed writing them? I don’t know about you but I’ve always preferred pictures to words when it comes to understanding how something works. “Proofs Without Words: Exercises in Visual Thinking” by Roger B. Nelsen is a ...

Is it a triangle or a square?

Monday, October 8th, 2007

Purdue Professor of Computer Science Greg N. Fredrickson is an absolute master of geometric dissections, the art and science of cutting up one or more geometric shapes and rearranging the pieces to form other shapes. One example from Fredrickson’s web-site for his first book, Dissections: Plane & Fancy, is ...