Comment by lutusp

1 year ago

Another "wonderful coincidence" is that the conversion between miles and kilometers involves this constant of conversion : kilometers = miles * 1.609344. Let's call 1.609344 the "km" constant.

As it happens, km is very close the the Golden Ratio (sqrt(5)+1)/2 = 1.618033989... (call this "gr"). In fact they only differ by about 1/2 of one percent (100 * (gr/km - 1) = 0.54%)! As the author of the original article says, "If you express this value in any other units, the magic immediately disappears. So, this is no coincidence ...". Yeah ... wait, what?

Here's another one. Pi (3.141592654...) is nearly equal to 4 / sqrt(gr) (3.144605511...), call the latter number "ap" for "almost pi". This connects pi to the golden ratio, and they differ by only 0.096% (100 * (pi/ap - 1)). Surely this means something -- doesn't it?

Finally, my favorite: 111111111^2 = 12345678987654321. This proves that ... umm ... wait ...