Some years ago I saw a cartoon in an engineering publication. An engineer and his girlfriend are in a convertible parked at a lovers outlook. Instead of becoming romantically involved, he is telling her, Mathematics is the language of the universe.

I guess its a corny cartoon that only engineers would understand, but there is so much truth in that statement.

Since the dawn of human history, people have been trying to understand the universe and what makes it tick. As early as 500 BC the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, among others, recognized a mathematical relationship that seemed to appear everywhere.

What exactly is this marvel? Mathematically speaking, Euclid described it as dividing a line where the ratio of the whole line to the larger part is the same as the ratio of the larger segment to the smaller one. It works out to 1.618 to 1.

This phenomenon has been called many things: the Golden Proportion, the Divine Proportion, the Golden Section and the Golden Rectangle, and it is represented by the Greek letter Phi.

Why is it so pleasing to the eye? Golden rectangles within golden rectangles can be formed on to infinity.

And it seems to be everywhere. The pyramids and hieroglyphics of Egypt; the Acropolis in Athens, Greece; the cathedral in Chartres, France and the Sun Pyramid in Teotihuacan, Mexico, all demonstrate the aesthetic property of this ratio.

It is equally pleasing in art. Almost everyone has seen the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci and works of Michaelangelo and Raphael. These artists made use of this appealing ratio in many of their masterpieces.

In our modern day, this ratio is put to work in, yes, newspapers and advertising. I recall reading a journalism students statement which described the arrangement of text, photos and ads on a newspaper page. The student said by following the golden mean, all of these items fit nicely onto the page and made it seem like they always belonged there. Take a look at the newspaper you are reading right now and see what you think.

I have even seen references to its use in music. I dont know much about music, so Im somewhat lost as to how it works there.

Before delving into the Divine Ratio and nature, I have to mention one other detail. A golden spiral results from the merging of points from many nested golden rectangles. In their petals, leaves, sections, seeds and branches, plants meticulously display this golden spiral. Conch and nautilus shells, starfish and pine cones are also perfect examples. Look at the bottom of a pine cone to see the concentric patterns of successive scales. You dont even have to go outside to forage for pine cones; just look at your fingerprints!

Speaking of fingerprints, lets not overlook the human body. Its loaded with golden rectangles, too many to mention. Perhaps because this is the way we are built, humans as a species apparently have a built-in appreciation for this aesthetic that transcends time and race and culture. It is worth pointing out that even the double helix strands of DNA, the tiny building blocks of all life, follow the same rule.

Albert Einstein and many physicists since his time have been searching for a unified field theory to find harmony in the universe and a single code that governs everything. It seems to me that the Divine Proportion unifies a wide range of phenomena, from the helixes of DNA to the spiral arms of our Milky Way galaxy, which fill up the universe.

It is a marvelous master plan. Any wonder it is described as divine?

T&D Correspondent Loretta Demko can be reached by e-mail at eeshtenem@yahoo.com.

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