Comments on: This One Goes to 13

By: Chilihead

Chilihead — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 02:36:36 +0000

Ok so I’m a bit behind on my reading, and just got to this article. LOVE IT! So much so that I ordered myself a divider from Lee Valley. I just got the divider. Having never used this tool before, I have a question. The end points on the divider are not exactly the same length when touching fully closed. Shouldn’t they be? Seems to me this might lead to some inaccuracy in measuring. Should I send these back or are they ok?

By: Jim Tolpin

Jim Tolpin — Tue, 03 May 2011 03:09:25 +0000

Thanks Daver…I ordered it.

By: Jim Tolpin

Jim Tolpin — Tue, 03 May 2011 03:01:05 +0000

Well, I shouldn’t have called the Golden Ratio a “Victorian fabrication” as the section was actually fabricated by mathematicians prior to that era. The fabrication I was referring to was the Victorian thinking that imagined pre-industrial furniture makers, luthiers (and probably other trades including blacksmiths)employing the golden section in design and layout of their products. I have yet to see any documents or source literature of that era attesting to that–in fact, what documentation we have points towards whole-number proportioning systems and simple geometry, not mathematics. (Which makes sense from the working artisan’s perspective as it would have been much too tedious to construct or calculate sections compared to simply stepping out ratios with a divider. They were trying to make a living after all. Just my two cents worth (and worth every penny as my Dad used to say).

By: Daver

Daver — Tue, 03 May 2011 02:37:12 +0000

In Jim’s article he says that he has not found a period source on how a sector was used. I’d suggest “A Treatise of Mathematical Instruments” by John Robertson. Flower-de_Luce Books is reprinting the 1775 3rd edition. Information at http://www.orbitals.com/books/index.html. Hard read with the old English long “S” and style of technical writing.

By: mbholden

mbholden — Mon, 02 May 2011 13:17:11 +0000

Since this tool is an outgrowth of one scale on the sector, I think that it should be called something else.
The divisions need to be identical, but not to a specific measure, so it is a scale rather than a ruler.
It is based on the sector’s “line of lines” so I propose we call it a “LOL Scale”

Tongue not quite firmly in cheek,
Mike

By: Fred West

Fred West — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 15:51:55 +0000

Well, I think the whole Golden Ratio and/or Golden Rectangle as it relates the sectors will now be used to generate gold or at the very least greenbacks. Jim, thank you for writing about this as I know it is going to help me. Fred

By: wfariss

wfariss — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 12:11:37 +0000

Can you point me to a concise book that lists all the ratios of furniture making? I have not found one yet but have picked up some ratios individually. Thanks.

- Bill

By: jbrinson

jbrinson — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 20:12:12 +0000

Actually the Golden Rectangle was long before The Victorian Era. As blacksmiths we use it for design in a lot of metal working. Our member Boyd Holtan in the Appalachian Blacksmiths Assoc. explains it best in this article that he wrote on it. http://www.appaltree.net/aba/design.pdf. Check it out and you will learn a lot about nature from Boyd, Fibonacci (the 13) and the Golden Rectangle. By the way Chris I am still working on that “Redneck Roubo”. John

By: truett49

truett49 — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 16:25:04 +0000

You guys and your higher math. I assumed Jim was a “This is Spinal Tap” and wanted his sector to exceed 11.

Lloyd

By: Steve_OH

Steve_OH — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 16:00:41 +0000

While I would certainly agree that the Golden Ratio has been overhyped and overapplied, there’s definitely a lot more to it than a “Victorian-era fabrication.” Its mathematical properties are such that it shows up in lots of unexpected places.

The most recent discovery that I’m aware of is that the structure of quasicrystals (proposed in the early 1960′s and first observed in nature in 1984) is closely tied to the Golden Ratio.

There has been some recent research in perception and aesthetics that indicates that a larger ratio, somewhere between 2.5:1 and 3:1 (roughly equal to the square of the Golden Ratio) is a “more preferred” value, at least in some contexts.

-Steve