“What is a supermodel?” People sometimes ask me. It has a few definitions and sometimes people argue over them, much the way Heidi Klum and Elle MacPherson fight over who is called “The Body.” *
If you’re reading this site, you know that a supermodel is an aspect of complexity science that incorporates multiple variables to try and spit out the best solution.
Ha Ha Ha.
Okay, supermodels can also be really hot chicks blessed with the combination of low self-esteem and jaw-droppingly loose morals that allow them to easily be tricked into deviant sex. Just this once we get to discuss both. And by both, I mean just the hot chicks.
So what makes a supermodel super? Like many important things in life, we can look back in time and see if history gives us an answer and saves us some effort. For centuries mathematicans have been intrigued by the “Golden Ratio” because it appears so often in geometry. Is a “golden ratio” something German eurotrash does because they are bored with their sex lives? No, it is a ratio that is the midpoint between asymmetry and symmetry. Defined it is when “the whole is to the larger as the larger is to the smaller”.
In numerical terms, it is 1.618.
Leonardo Da Vinci, who wrote this blog somewhere around 1500 AD, was the first to use the term golden ratio but in later years American mathematician Mark Barr used the Greek letter Φ (phi) to represent it and that is common today.
Stairways, buildings, paper sizes and lots of other things use Φ in their designs because it is inherently pleasing to us. In music, the octave, fifth, and major and minor sixths are ratios of consecutive numbers of the Fibonacci sequence, making them the closest low integer ratios to the golden ratio. This is why when people ask me how I play music so well I always respond, “Because I am a scientist.” Music is math people. For the definitive work on this concept go and buy ( do not rent ) Young Einstein
So how does it relate to supermodels?
It turns out that the golden ratio in faces may decide what we like too. This study at the University of Regensburg examined the role of the golden ratio in our perception of beauty.
Is it conclusive? No, some people like a little irregularity. I like quirky noses, for example, but Lady Scientist has a perfectly shaped head and that is appealling also.
Here is a sample problem using the golden ratio. Be sure to tell me which of these mathematical constructs pleases you the most.
*I don’t read Time but Elle says they anointed her that in 1986. Heidi was the first time I ever heard it used about anyone, even if I never thought she was all that great. So given a choice I would go with Elle but, if she was called that first, it didn’t stick, since even a guy running a site called Science And Supermodels didn’t know she had it.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 26th, 2006 at 8:40 am and is filed under guitars, math, music, supermodels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 30th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
[...] But let’s go back to this music is math stuff. On that part I’m not kidding. At the end of the day, a lot of things can be math, including music and supermodels. A few months ago I did an article on how Phi, the famously named Golden Ratio, could even tell us who would be a supermodel. It contained excellent science, humor, Elle MacPherson, Carol Alt and Heidi Klum , yet still left some math questions unanswered. [...]