What Is This Golden Grid Thing?

[Gnatfish]

I saw it on another thread but i don't really understand it.

Whats it do?

 

[craynerd]

What golden grid lol , not by any chance on Moodys thread.

I`m sure Sam will explain it to you, he is a big believer!

google it.

1.6180 or more correctly (1 + SqRt 5) / 2

Chris

 

[Gnatfish]

I'm confused. I'll just stick to just looking at it the tank to see...

 

[Themuleous]

I`m sure Sam will explain it to you, he is a big believer!

I sure am, I would go anywhere without one in my pocket, its just so useful.

Sam

 

[alanchown]

I saw it on another thread but i don't really understand it.

Whats it do?

Is it not the imaginary grid that divides the tank into 3rds to assists aquascaping? I just had a quick scoot around the web but couldn't find anything-but I know it's there. Unless Sam still has it in it's pocket!

Alan

 

[craynerd]

I`m sure Sam will explain it to you, he is a big believer!

I sure am, I would go anywhere without one in my pocket, its just so useful.

Sam

HAHA, i have two, one in each pocket, although that would be symmetrical, so i suppose you are more in light with the golden ratio with just one in one side pocket?
I have even started sitting at my computer desk just of center to comply with the ratio.

Chris

 

[MasterP]

you guys are confusing me way to much. JUst tell us what it is and what it does.

 

[ulster exile]

you guys are confusing me way to much

Ditto!

JUst tell us what it is and what it does

Please

 

[George Farmer]

The golden ratio is used as a guide for aquascaping i.e. where to place the main focal point of the tank. An aquascape should have one, maybe two focal points i.e. a large rock, piece of wood or group of bright red plants etc.

An example -

Take your tank's length and multiply by 0.618. i.e 24" x 0.618 = 14.8"

So place the center of the main focal point 14.8" along the length of the tank.

That's basically it.

The golden ratio is used in all aspects life, from widescreen TVs to the formation of a snail's shell spiral. It is what naturally appeals to our sense of aesthetic.

Try this - http/www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumap...t-wolfgang.html

 

[Gnatfish]

Yay, Finally some ones explained it!

Thanks

 

[Bloo]

What golden grid lol , not by any chance on Moodys thread.

I`m sure Sam will explain it to you, he is a big believer!

google it.

1.6180 or more correctly (1 + SqRt 5) / 2

Chris

To someone who genuinely would like to know and doesn't have a clue, your answer is not of much help I'm afraid I'm a great fan of google, but even so, it's not as though the answer jumps out at you.
A formula without a context makes no sense at all.

The golden ratio is used as a guide for aquascaping i.e. where to place the main focal point of the tank. An aquascape should have one, maybe two focal points i.e. a large rock, piece of wood or group of bright red plants etc.

Thanks George - that's very helpful

 

[craynerd]

To someone who genuinely would like to know and doesn't have a clue, your answer is not of much help I'm afraid I'm a great fan of google, but even so, it's not as though the answer jumps out at you.
A formula without a context makes no sense at alllol, maybe... you are right, the answer does not jump out on google, it takes hours and hours of searching. Which is what i have done and pieces together this:

LOL, maybe you are right, the answer does not jump out on google (well unless you type golden ratio planted tank, that takes you directly to the APC article!!), it takes hours and hours of searching. Which is what i have done and put together this in the last few days.

I would call it part 1, if i had time to make a part 2. I need to reference some areas which i have taken directly from books and websites.


------------------------Golden Ratio, Part 1 ---------------------------------

What is the golden ratio?

The first recorded use of the term golden ratio is thought to be by Martin Ohm in the 1835 2nd edition of his textbook Die Reine Elementar-Mathematik (Livio 2002, p. 6). The words he used directly translated from German means "golden section".
The first known use of this term in English is in James Sulley's 1875 article on aesthetics in the 9th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. However, the practical use of the golden ratio was used much longer ago, even dating back to the Greek sculptor Phidias (ca. 490-430 BC), who a number of art historians claim made extensive use of the golden ratio in his works (Livio 2002, pp. 5-6). Even in a recent science fiction novel, the character Robert Langdon in the “Da Vinci Codeâ€￾ makes a connection of the golden ratio to the historic pentagram and Fibonacci sequence.

Although we will briefly cover the math which denotes the formation of the golden ratio, the true theoretical understanding involves complex mathematical calculations. Due to the deep and limited need for this understanding, we shall steer away from this route and delve deeper into its practical implications and use in the aquarium.

The golden ratio is often represented by the Greek letter, phi, φ and in fact represents a irrational number. This number is often stated as 1.6180 (as erroneously labored on in the Da Vinci Code) however strictly speaking, this is not exactly true since the number is being rounded an approximation and can never be an exact quantity. We are now being far to precise, since our need for the golden ratio is well suited to this erroneous approximation and for our understanding and the remainder of this article we shall name it as that, 1.618.

So what is so special about the number and how can it be used in the aquarium? The number is also regularly referred to by artists as the divine number and it is the division of a given unit of length into two parts such that the ratio of the shorter to the longer equals the ratio of the longer part to the whole.

In more simple terms, it gives us a guide to the aesthetic positioning of décor in the aquarium. Let us take for example a simple tank in which we want to place one lone rock, where would we naturally place it? I doubt it if many of you would place it perfectly central in the tank, most of us would naturally place it just off center to disturb the symmetry for more relaxing feel.


..............and thats as far as a got!

Hope that was useful, i will going to explain how it is used in the aquarium but to be honest the APC article is OK.

The best way of working out how it is used is by copying some Amano tanks and adding the grid lines, i have done this to loads of tanks and my understanding really developed this way!

I do not make fantastic tanks, i do not propose to know it all, but i have done my research and this takes time and effort so maybe people should be a little more persistant with their searches. I often come on the net at 7pm after work and chat to other hobbiests on msn and read the forums literally until 1-2am....nearly every night!

Anyway, thats besides the point. Hope this time you found my post helpfull, Bloo ?

Regards
Chris

 

[oldwhitewood]

The great thing about the golden ratio is it's instinctive. I think it is just a way of trying to rationalise what an artistic person does without realising it.

As craynerd has pointed out you can take any really well aquascaped tank and apply the golden ratio grid to it to learn how it works. In a very basic way it means place things slightly off centre.

Say if you had a bare tank with sand in and were asked to place a rock in such a place which is most astetically pleasing to you, you would place it slightly off centre to the left for the majority of people, this is the golden ratio. A computer would place it dead centre, that is the difference.

Of course it raises all sorts of arguements for not following the ratio to create tension but this is more cerebral and difficult to explain, its just what 'feels right'. Another example is placing wood, say if you had loads of jutting branches facing each other, this would create more tension and drama in the aquascape than having them just lying on the bottom, which would create a more 'restful' feeling. It's all about harmony and balance, and of course is used a lot in zen gardening, we needent follow it and research it so much though just take some of the lessons and apply them in a practical way to what we are doing as planted tank fans.

I think it is a useful technique to be mindful of.

 

[craynerd]

I think it is a useful technique to be mindful of.

Amen.

 

[ulster exile]

Thank you, that's very helpful!