by Reginald King Mark Bebbington THE resurgence of light music both on disc and latterly in the concert hall-thanks to conductors like John Wilson-has been a phenomenon of the last 20 years.
Golden Ratio. The golden ratio (symbol is the Greek letter phi shown at left) is a special number approximately equal to 1.618. It appears many times in geometry, art, architecture and other areas.
Why? Any number that is a simple fraction (example: 0.75 is 3/4, and 0.95 is 19/20, etc) will, after a while, make a pattern of lines stacking up, which makes gaps. But the Golden Ratio (its symbol is the Greek letter Phi, shown at left) is an expert at not being any fraction. It is an Irrational Number (meaning we cannot write it as a simple fraction), but more than that ... it is as far as we can get from being near any fraction.