This is an excerpt from Master Fibonacci: The Man Who Changed Math. All citations are catalogued on the Citations page.
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The Milky Way Galaxy, the Andromeda nebula, and the spiral Galaxy M81 have spiral patterns resembling the Golden Spiral (Scotta and Marketos; Meisner). Not so obvious are the Golden Ratio properties some scientists propose exist between the distribution of planets, moons, asteroids and rings in the solar system (Boeyens and Thackeray; Akhtaruzzaman and Shafie). Some astronomy hypotheses attempt to explain solar system formation by considering the mean distances of the planets from the sun.
Borrowing from the research of Gary Meisner, engineers Md. Akhtaruzzaman and Amir A. Shafie theorize that, if the measurement of orbital distances of planets is started from Mercury, the first planet of the solar system, rather than Earth, the third, and the average of the mean planet orbital distances of each successive planet is taken in relation to the one before it, the value will approximate the Golden Ratio (Meisner, Ref: GoldenNumber.net).
Mean distance in million kilometers as per NASA | Relative mean distances where Mercury is considered at the beginning | |
---|---|---|
Mercury | 57.91 | 1 |
Venus | 108.21 | 1.86859 |
Earth | 149.6 | 1.3825 |
Mars | 227.92 | 1.52353 |
Ceres (largest object in asteroid belt) | 413.79 | 1.81552 |
Jupiter | 778.57 | 1.88154 |
Saturn | 1,433.53 | 1.84123 |
Uranus | 2,872.46 | 2.00377 |
Neptune | 4,495.06 | 1.56488 |
Pluto | 5,869.66 | 1.3058 |
Total Relative Mean Distance | 16.18736 |
The Average | 1.61874 |
Golden Ratio | 1.61803 |
Fibonacci sequence numbers and relationships between them are displayed in sea wave curves and in the tributary patterns of stream and drainage patterns and in weather patterns which sometimes very closely match the Golden Spiral, such as whirlpools and hurricanes (Scotta and Marketos; Tracy). Both Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina were said to have manifested the Golden Spiral structure (Boeyens and Thackeray).
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Paperback: 128 pages
Author: Shelley Allen, M.A.Ed.
Publisher: Fibonacci Inc.; 1st edition (2019)
Language: English