Talk:Golden ratio/Archive 3

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Non-Greek Origins

Its pretty clear to me that the "Sherrifs" of this page are in VIOLENT OPPOSITION TO THE PRINICPLES OF WIKIPEDIA. They are going to stick to the idea that the Greeks were the first with Phi, no matter what the evidence. The deletion of refrences to Egypt and Hebrew use is uttlery without excuse. The Hebrew Temple deletion refered to the text itself, so assuming the reader can do fractions, then the lack of another citation is not a "reason" for deltion. It is an EXCUSE TO PROMOTE A POINT OF VIEW. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.96.78.217 (talk) 12:05, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

You have provided no references for your assertions. Until you do, they will not be in the article. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:58, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm with Arthur on this. We've spent the last year or more getting unsourced bull out of this article. If there are facts we missed, please bring them in and share your sources. And read up on the principles of wikipedia yourself, esp. WP:V and WP:RS. Dicklyon 04:23, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Recursive/continuous fractions notation

Regarding this reversion. If Phi is definded recursively (1 + 1/(1+1/(etc...))) the subscript means nothing, but if defined iteratively (1 + 1/1 = 2, 1 + 1/2 = 1.5, 1 + 1/1.5= 1.66, etc..), the subscripts are absolutely necessary (as none of the subscripted Phis are actally Phi but approximations of Phi). This should be explicitly stated in the applicable section as it is a little confusing. Adam McCormick 05:08, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I've made an edit which should alleviate any possible confusion. Please discuss before reverting. Adam McCormick 05:27, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it helped. The old way was more clear and correct, so I restored it. There's no need to introduce the subscripted phi notation for the convergents. Dicklyon 06:57, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
But when calculating Phi iteratively, none of the calculations actually produces Phi, it may need to be put somewhere else but it does need to exist, I'm reverting back to my version, please reorganize if you don't think this applies to convergents Adam McCormick 16:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I still don't see why we need to give the convergents subscripted-phi names. The old text that you changed already states that the convergents are not phi themselves, but approximate it. To me, it is confusing to see the infinite continued fraction and then to see your wording about how this formula may be "expanded iteratively" when the iterative expansion is not the same formula, but rather a sequence of approximations. I think the older wording about using the convergents of the infinite continued fractions as approximations makes this more clear. —David Eppstein 17:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I understand that, my problem is that a non-math person trying to approximate Phi wouldn't have any idea how to implement the continued fraction, and even with some exposure to the subject I still find the convergents statement very confusing. I think the iterative form needs to exist somewhere, that's all. Adam McCormick 19:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
But it is somewhere: it's in the decimal expansion / calculation methods section, which is I think a more likely place to look for this as a calculation method. Specifically, the continued fraction section that you've been trying to edit says that the convergents are ratios of Fibonacci numbers, and the last sentence of the calculation methods section says to take the ratio of consecutive Fibonacci numbers. However as a method for approximately calculating the golden ratio this iteration is significantly slower than the Newton iteration described earlier in the calculation methods section. —David Eppstein 19:35, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Please do not remove the periods from the ends of sentences. Displaying them as part of the formula, the way they were before you removed them, is a standard convention in mathematical typography. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive 28#Periods at the end of displayed formulas for a recent discussino on exactly this issue. —David Eppstein 19:39, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The alternative typographical convention of not putting end punctuation after displayed equations is also quite commonly used by reputable publishers. Does wikipedia have a policy on this? Or a style guideline? Dicklyon 23:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Examples, please? I just checked some journals by AMS, SIAM, ACM, Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, and World Scientific, and they all had punctuated displayed equations. I did find a Kluwer journal in which some sentences that ended in displayed equations had a period, others didn't, often within the same article, but that seems more like a lack of copyediting than a consistent house style. —David Eppstein 00:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
The first book I picked up off the top of my stack consistently omits end punct on displayed equations (6th ed. of Hunt's The Reproduction of Colour in case you want to check). I'm not saying it's the most popular convention these days, but in fact it's what I was taught, maybe 15 years ago or so, when I had been doing endpunct. The argument is that it's less likely to introduce confusion into equations if you don't add dots and things in the display. Dicklyon 04:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Mathematical pyramid redundancy

"The height of this pyramid is Phi times the semi-base...The slope of the face is also Phi." This is kind of redundantly redundant. Since the height of a right triangle is always the base times the slope of the hypotenuse, the statement says the same the twice. You think that we should change that, or leave it anyway? ROBO_HEN5000 ROBO 01:43, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

See if you like the way I fixed it. The link that was hanging on there was also irrelvant, so I took it out. Dicklyon 02:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Bartok

copied here from my talk page: Dicklyon 22:33, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

It is pretty clear to me that whoever wrote the section on Bartok's use of Fibonacci numbers is not a musician. They use the use the terms progression and interval incorrectly. My edit corrected that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.49.14.18 (talk) 22:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Your edit also added some stuff not supported by the reference. I added a link to the ref so you can check what it says; so try again, but if what you add is not supported by, or contradicts, the reference, than you'll need to find a new reference to support it. We have to be rather strict on this particular article as it tends to accumulate a lot of junk otherwise. Dicklyon 22:30, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry for posting on wrong page, I'm new here. I definately believe that this page would accumulate a lot of junk - so many misconceptions - so I understand your vigilance. You should definately consider changing the part about Bartok's use of Fibonacci numbers...how about a musical score as a reference? For us musicians, that is much better than any book. It is, in fact, not even known for a fact that Bartok used the Fibonacci numbers. Even the passage discussed, although definately suggestive of their use, is marked rubato. Bartoks musical language conceals his use of the Fibonacci numbers and the golden ratio if he in fact used them - and that should be noted here. If someone can provide a writing in which Bartok states that he used it, only then is it proven beyond any doubt. I checked out the reference; if you want to take such writing as a reference you are welcome to, but you are doing a disfavor to wikipedia. Check the score and you will see that my addition was more complete; ask educated musicians and you will see that terminology was incorrectly used. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.49.56.56 (talk) 21:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
If you have sources with more info, please do fix it; however, also keep in mind that this article is supposed to be about the golden ratio, so if you have expansions on the fib.no. stuff, that might be better in a different article. Or if there's reason to believe the source cited is not to be regarded as a reliable source, tell us the reason and take that info out. Also, wikipedia prefers to report what is in secondary sources, not new interpretations of primary sources; the latter are called WP:OR and are discouraged. Dicklyon 05:52, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I guess I can understand that policy. Just goes to show it is impossible to have a perfect policy. Thanks for the info anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.49.32.214 (talk) 15:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

penny arcade reference?

http://www.pennyarcademerch.com/pat070421.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.116.131.170 (talk) 14:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Explicit expression

The term explicit expression is used in its mathematical sense in about 20 Wikipedia articles, but I did not see a definition in any of them. I redlinked its use in Golden ratio. It would be helpful for Wikipedia to have a definition of this term to which usages can be linked, either as a short article devoted to the term or as a section in an appropriate article on mathematical expressions. Finell (Talk) 06:00, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

It's implicitly defined in implicit function; I recommend you redirect to there. Dicklyon (talk) 06:22, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Just wanted to comment that the Golden Mean isn't "the felicitous meeting of two extremes." According to the article it seems to be more about moderation and temperance, not a random meeting of two unlike things. [{Special:Contributions/71.82.122.91|71.82.122.91]] (talk) 01:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It says "middle", not "meeting", and is accurate and sufficient for the purpose of disambiguation. Finell (Talk) 09:02, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Controversy section needed

I read a journal article on this topic that shows that most of these interpretations of art matching golden ratios are rather unlikely. There is nothing but correlation, and the connection between the golden ratio and these masterpieces may be a simple effect of biased selection: In other words, there are many measurements in a building or a face, and to dismiss the measurements that do not conform, or the aesthetically pleasing art that doesn't conform to the golden ratio would certainly introduce bias.

Here is a link to the article: http://laptops.maine.edu/GoldenRatio.pdf by George Markowsky. Deepstratagem (talk) 17:07, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

We decided about 18 months ago to not have a controversy section, but just to focus on verifiable points. We've already done a pretty good job of reducing the frivolous claims, so it's not clear to me where you feel there's a problem. The Markowsky paper is already linked in further reading; if you figure out what journal it's from, you might want to use it as a source and add a bit of what it says where needed. Dicklyon (talk) 17:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Phi and the semitone

In the "Music" section, I have added "Phi and the semitone". However, I have used non-Wiki terms for mathematical expressions. Perhaps someone more familiar with Wiki math would be kind enough to revise my mathematical expressions. Thanks! Prof.rick (talk) 19:49, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Since it's just unsourced numerology, I just took it out. Let us know if you have a reliable source connecting phi to the semitone, and maybe we can put it back. Dicklyon (talk) 21:25, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
We could use a third opinion about this now in Mathematical coincidences. Dicklyon (talk) 09:31, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

timeline

Life is too short to debate this edit; so I provide the deleted information here, for anyone who is interested:

The oldest known applications of the golden ratio are likely in vedic mathematics (more than 3.000 BC) and likely also in some Egyptian pyramids (2000 BC).

— Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 23:34, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not about debate. See WP:V and WP:RS. Dicklyon (talk) 00:25, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Former FA candidate

In April 2007, a well-meaning Wikipedian, who had not participated in the article and appears not to have expertise in its subject matter, nominated Golden ratio to be a featured article. This drive-by nomination was short lived: all who commented on the nomination opposed it. Since this nomination was essentially an accident, and the embarrassment of failure was not self-inflicted, I propose deleting the box concerning its failed FA candidacy from the top of this Talk page. Comments? Finell (Talk) 06:29, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I would agree. I wonder somewhat what difference it makes, but I don't think its presence really matters. Adam McCormick (talk) 05:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Done. Finell (Talk) 23:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Weasel Words

"Some suggest that he.." in the bit about Mona Lisa. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lukechumley (talk • contribs) 04:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)