φ

5 Responses · November 17, 2008

φ2x + φ5x + φ2x + φ8x + φ3x + φ7x + φ5x = 960

What is this? Or, what is phi here? Euler’s totient func­tion? Func­tions which appear to con­sist enti­rely of varia­bles but result in an inte­ger con­fuse me, and as a coro­llary, inte­rest me.

jef(f) · November 23, 2008

I became dan­ge­rously obses­sed with desig­ning this site around the gol­den ratio. It’s now a three-column layout (with four mar­gins), all of whose widths are are rela­ted by phi. Given a 960-pixel total page width, this is the equa­tion I wrote to deter­mine exactly how wide each column and mar­gin should be.

Jay · November 23, 2008

I for­got to men­tion that, for no dis­cer­ni­ble rea­son, it was also impor­tant to me that all seven of those expo­nents be Fibo­nacci num­bers. That didn’t yield prac­ti­cal column widths, howe­ver, so I had to settle in one ins­tance on 7, which I jus­ti­fied as being accep­ta­ble because it is a Lucas number.

Jay · November 23, 2008

I for­got how cool you are

katie t. · November 25, 2008

Jay · November 25, 2008

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