I made this video earlier
Which shows that the Golden Mean is used even more extensively in Darth Vader’s helmet design than Mona herself, who is famous for it.
![darth_spiral Darth Vader Golden Mean](https://goldenmeancalipers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/darth_spiral-1000x706.jpg)
![mona_spiral Mona Lisa Golden Mean](https://goldenmeancalipers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/mona_spiral-1000x570.jpg)
The point (that I never get to in the video) behind all this, is not that Darth Vader is related to Mona Lisa… but that there is a margin of error in artistic applications of the golden mean. It’s not big… I’d say (at a guess) it’s around 3%. In a later post, I’ll collect a medium-ish sample-size of examples and figure out exactly what it is.
A couple of things alerted me to this… one is the nautilus shell which is always being used as an example…
![nautilus](https://goldenmeancalipers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/nautilus-1000x755.png)
Now that ain’t the golden mean. The exact ratio is closer to 290.5/219.4 = 1.324 (18% wrong)… which is miles out. Now… the measurements on Darth or Mona’s faces are nowhere near as inacurate as that – but they’re still not 100%… As I say, I’m guessing they’re about 3%. I think people operate a confirmation-bias when it comes to golden-mean stuff, so the nautilus (and others) get cited as examples… when really, they’re quite a long way off.
The other thing that makes me suspect that there’s a margin of error is the recent fuss about the iCloud logo conforming to the golden mean
![Apple-iCloud-Golden-Ratio](https://goldenmeancalipers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Apple-iCloud-Golden-Ratio1.jpg)
They say 1.6… but 1.6 isn’t the golden mean (it’s 1.1% out)… 1.618 is closer…
So I got an official version of the iCloud logo…
![icloud_new](https://goldenmeancalipers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/icloud_new.png)
The RHS circle measurements are 232.7 / 194.2 = 1.2 —–> 25%
The LHS circle measurements are 194.2 / 114.3 = 1.7 —–> 5%
Which is miles out.
Now to be fair to whoever originally blogged about this… the logo they used was different
![icloud_old](https://goldenmeancalipers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/icloud_old.png)
The RHS circle measurements are 278.0 / 172.2 = 1.614 —–> 0.25%
The LHS circle measurements are 188.2 / 117.2 = 1.605 —–> 0.8%
Which is pretty close to be honest. Apple’s designers obviously went “oh noes, we’ve been rumbled. Change it, quick”.
I’m guessing that the average margin of error in oft-cited examples of golden-mean-dom is about 3% though… so to all intents and purposes, the golden ratio is between 1.67 and 1.57
Which isn’t that much… the middle one is 1.618.
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