All right, Φ is straight-up crazy.
- Φ² = Φ + 1
- ⅟Φ = Φ − 1
The man in the video is Dr. John Baez. He’s a math professor at my school, the University of California in Riverside, and his awesome math and physics articles are all over the Internet. (When Googling various math topics, I’ve had Baez articles come up as the first or second hit more times than I’ve kept track of). He’s on sabbatical this year, but next year I’ll constantly be bugging him with questions about things.
As for the Golden Number Phi: well, it’s very cool and all, but notice the equation ⅟Φ = Φ − 1 immediately follows from Φ² = Φ + 1; just divide both sides by Φ. Furthermore, the equation Φ² = Φ + 1 is guaranteed to have some real solution, so it’s not exactly miraculous that a number with these properties exists. Still, it’s very cool.
(via proofmathisbeautiful)
