Saturday, September 19, 2009

Golden Leopard

Golden Leopard is a segmented mobile. Each of the rings (except for the smallest one) is made from 32 leopardwood segments - 161 segments in all. The outer ring measures 19-5/8" and the center ring 1-1/4". The photo below shows a test glue-up.



How did I come up with the name?

"A certain man put a pair of rabbits in a place surrounded on all sides by a wall. How many pairs of rabbits can be produced from that pair in a year if it is supposed that every month each pair begets a new pair, which from the second month on becomes productive."

This problem appeared in the third section of Liber abaci and led to the discovery for which Fibonacci is best remembered - the Fibonacci Sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. The Fibonacci Sequence bears a close relationship to the Golden Mean (or Divine Proportion) - the relation, in perfect proportion, of the whole to its parts. [for more detail, see Divine Proportion by Priya Hemenway]


Larry


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