Spirals in Nature: The Magical Number behind Hurricanes and Galaxies


	Spirals in Nature: The Magical Number behind Hurricanes and Galaxies

p-hari

7-2-2007 12:05 AM

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/45c212c3-3803-4958-8dc5-560e9d7b7f1f/3BAF8785-323B-4E7C-8ABA-7ADCEC60C555/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/perfect_spirals_030917.html" href="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/perfect_spirals_030917.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.space.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/perfect_spirals_030917.html">Spirals in Nature: The Magical Number behind Hurricanes and Galaxies </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/perfect_spirals_030917.html">As hurricane Isabel churned toward his office in Baltimore yesterday, astrophysicist Mario Livio pondered the curious similarity between the storm's shape and that of our Milky Way Galaxy. In fact, Livio knows, the shape is shared by things as diverse as a seashell, water going down a drain and the path of a falcon on the hunt.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/perfect_spirals_030917.html"><FONT size="2" face="arial"><FONT face="arial"><FONT size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" color="#333333"><FONT size="2" face="arial" color="#333333"><FONT size="2" face="arial" color="#333333"><B><P>Spinning a storm</P></B></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT><P><FONT size="2" face="arial"><FONT face="arial"><FONT size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" color="#333333"><FONT size="2" face="arial" color="#333333"><FONT size="2" face="arial" color="#333333">Other than conforming to the Golden Ratio, hurricanes and galaxies share few physical traits. Gravity and angular momentum, or spin, play a role in both cases. But the similarities stop there.</FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></FONT></P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/perfect_spirals_030917.html"> the logarithmic spiral is a key shape for anything that grows, because with growth the ratio does not change. But logarithmic spirals appear in totally unrelated phenomena.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/perfect_spirals_030917.html">Phi (not pi) is the number 1.618 followed by an infinite string. Take a rectangle whose sides conform to this Golden Ratio, carve from it a square, and the remaining rectangle still follows the ratio.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/3BAF8785-323B-4E7C-8ABA-7ADCEC60C555/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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