This time I pledge that I won’t be a spoiler like I did in my previous entry “Revenge of the Sith“.

Thriller writing doesn’t get any better than this. - Denver Post
The review about Dan Brown’s much acclaimed novel The DaVinci Code is never ending. The book ran at an exhilarating tempo through a night of murder, symbology, code breaking, cryptology, secret societies and Leonardo DaVinci’s The Vitruvian Man.

The Vitruvian Man, there are many myths and theories which surrounds this DaVinci work. But from an angle, we can understand the proportions of the human body. For example, if we divide the total height of our body with the length from toe to waist, or the total length of our arm divide by the length from fingertip to elbow, we get a value 1.61803399. This proportions can be found in many of natures creations from the arrangements of petals in a flower, eye like marking in a butterfly, spiral of a sea shell, the list never ending. This value is roughly a ratio of 5/3, called the The Golden Ratio or Phi (Pronounced Fi).

This ratio was applied to many of DaVinci’s work and on many Roman architects.
The Golden rectangle, as many of us may have heard is also based on the Golden Ratio.
There are unlimited applications today from paper sizes to page layout and yes graphics design.

Thank you Mr. Brown for helping me realize that not all old painting are for Historians. Or who knows, maybe I’m growing old, while learning to appreciate your book and old paintings ;)

Some related links:
http://goldennumber.net/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/leonardo/gallery/vitruvian.shtml
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GoldenRectangle.html
http://www.danbrown.com/