Rule of thirds two thirds of water, and these together, forming about one-third of the picture, the remaining two-thirds to be for air and sky; and he applies the same rule to the crossing and breaking of lines and objects, &c. Even at this early date, there was skepticism over the universality of such a rule, at least in regards to color, for Field continues: This rule, however, does not supply a general law, but universalises a particular, the invariable observance of which would produce a uniform and monotonous practice. But, however occasionally useful, it is neither accurate nor universal, the true mean
One-third hypothesis theory. One-third hypothesis The one-third hypothesis (OTH) is a sociodynamic idea—advanced by Hugo O. Engelmann—that asserts that a group's prominence increases as it approaches one-third of the population and diminishes when it exceeds or falls below one-third of the population. As the one-third hypothesis was stated originally by Hugo O. Engelmann in a letter to the "American Sociologist" in 1967: "...we would expect that the most persistent subgroups in any group would be those which approximate one-third or, by similar reasoning, a multiple of [i.e., a power of] one-third of the total group. Being the most persistent, these groups also