February 8, 2005
-
New from the
Oscar-winning producer,
director, and screenwriter
of “A Beautiful Mind” -
“The Divine Proportion…
is an irrational number and
the positive solution
of the quadratic equationx2 – x – 1 = 0,which is (1+Sqrt(5))/2,
about 1.618034.The Greek letter ‘phi’
(see below for the symbol)
is sometimes used
to
represent this number.”
For another approach to
the divine proportion, see“The rogue’s yarn that will run through much of the
material is the algebraic symmetry to which the name of Galois is
attached and which I wanted to introduce in as concrete and appealing a
way as possible….Apart
from its intrinsic appeal, that is the reason for treating the
construction of the pentagon, and our task today will be to acquire
some feel for this construction. It is not easy.”
– R. P. Langlands, 1999 lecture (pdf) at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, in the spirit of Hermann Weyl
