With brilliant photographs and illustrations, the author investigates the dynamic interplay of art, science, and nature as they dance to the great ideas advanced by famous men and women over the past three millennia.

After reading this book you will have a profound understanding of ten major ideas of our universe. You have never read anything like this before — a book that will touch you emotionally with the beauty and truth common to art, science, and nature. The scope and explanatory power of these pages is astounding.

This following excerpt is taken from chapter 6 "Numbers: Natural" and deals with Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, and the golden number, phi ( = j = 1.618).

Phi has taken us on a fantastic voyage from the pyramids of Egypt, to Pythagoras’ five-pointed star, through the columns of Athens’ Parthenon and the seats of Epidaurus’ theater, and Agrippa’s Man in the Pentagram, to the paintings of today. We have journeyed from Adam’s navel to phi’s belly­button. And much of what we‘ve found is pure fluff.

What can using 1.618 (phi) compared to 1.5 possibly add to a painting or a design? Nothing! What extra significance does phi give to a work of art? None! What additional symbolism does the golden ratio bestow? Zilch! As long as the Parthenon was narrower than the too fat ratio (1:2) and shorter than the too tall ratio (1:1), then any number of values would be just right — including 1.5 and phi (see Figure 6.19). Furthermore, the supposed “navel ratio” of Vitruvian Man and the Man in a Pentagram makes no sense. You might just as well find the average length of the distance between your eyes and divide it by the length of your nose. What racial group should you use to achieve this average, Ruandan or Inuit? These are distractions, which when taken to extremes, lead to a kind of hi-phi foolishness that only humans are capable of.

A phenomenon of the publishing world, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code cleverly exploits this pseudo marriage between phi and the art world. The plot begins with an albino member of the Roman Catholic sect Opus Dei executing a prominent art curator in the Louvre’s Gallery Grand. Left dying, the curator pens a scrambled version of the Fibonacci sequence (i.e. 13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5), strips off his clothes, paints a pentagram around his navel, and arranges himself in the form of Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man (see Figure 6.21). All this is to conceal a conspiracy covering-up the “true” origins of Christianity. From here this book rockets to oc--cult status.

But the divine proportion belongs in the field of dreams among the compound flowers, the branching of trees, and the spiraling of pine cones. To tease out his secrets, he’s also welcomed in the mathematician’s study — this is his true home. Somehow, sometimes, Phidias stumbles into the artist’s workshop or party, where, while he does little harm, he brings no gifts. As art spectators, our search for patterns has led us to see designs that are either entirely in our heads or the artiste didn’t intend. Or if Phi was invited, the result is no better or worse than if he had been excluded from the guest list. Although some may imagine they saw him, Mr. Phidias Golden has either left the building or he’s mute.

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