Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 04:17:12 -0500
From: Gregory {Greg} Downing <downingg-AT-is2.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: PLC: Numbers and Cohesion (Was Re: Spinoza's Ethics)


At 03:38 AM 11/25/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Greg, 
>
>The Fibonacci series begins like this.
>
>                      1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55......
>
>Each number is the sum of the two previous numbers.  It was discovered during
>the middle ages by Leonard of Pisa, and I betcha Joyce mentions it somewhere.
> It's apparently a very mathematically sophisticated series, and I've heard
>of whole clubs of amateur mathematicians, mostly in Russia, who devote
>themselves to studying the Fibonacci series.  
>

There's lots of numerical stuff in Joyce; can't begin to start discussing
it. Ask if you want examples. Have to get to bed.

Have you ever read Ghyka's _Geometry of Art and Life_ (1946 or so), which
was pointed out to me when I was a callow thing (well, callower than now) by
a Brasilian novelist in the 1970s whose work I was intersted in (Osman Lins
-- see e.g. in re geometry his Avalovara, eventually translated about 1980).
Ghyka is quite available; Dover has had it in print since the late 70s.


>Anyway, look for references to Leonard of Pisa or Fibonacci.  O yes. And also
>Jam Hambidge, who did a lot of measurements of the Parthenon. He was trying
>to prove that "beauty" depended on a certain set of ratios.  I think
>especially the Golden Mean or Golden Section, in which 
>
>                      a/b = b/c

Quite a few folks talk about GM/GS in connection with various ancient (Gk,
Rom) literary docs....

Greg Downing/NYU, at greg.downing-AT-nyu.edu or downingg-AT-is2.nyu.edu



     --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---