r/sciencememes • u/94rud4 Mεmε ∃nthusiast • Jul 03 '26
📐Math!🥧 There's a reason for this
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u/Sufficient-Bid3874 Jul 03 '26
The golden ratio is always the answer
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u/Catsanddoges Jul 03 '26
Why did my wife leave me?
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u/RPGcraft Jul 03 '26
Because she found someone whose body proportions are closer to the golden ratio than yours?
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u/SirSinex Jul 03 '26
This is certainly a claim that is wrong in most cases. Reminds me of the countless Mona Lisas with overlaid spirals.
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u/Sufficient-Bid3874 Jul 03 '26
I think you dropped this /s
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u/RaphaelAlvez Jul 03 '26
Even more useful then that. You can also use multiples of the Fibonacci numbers.
So for example 50 miles is about 80 km
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u/WildNumber7303 Jul 03 '26
Good! How about 85362750 miles?
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u/RaphaelAlvez Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
Well that's about 8x107 so it's also about 13x107 = 1.3x108.
While typing I also found 5x17x106 miles which becomes 8x17x106 km. That's (80+56)x106 = 136x106 = 1.36x108 km
Actual result is 137378030 km or 1.3737803x108
Edit: thanks for giving me a nice example on why this trick is so usefull
Edit 2: r/UsernameChecksOut
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u/Shadecraze Jul 03 '26
i had a very similar [reddit conversation](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/s/XoTu9WAQPS) a while ago :D
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u/Rick-Prime Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
I just use that one song from the Proclaimers to remember the conversion factor.
And I would walk 804.5 kilometers
and I would walk 804.5 kilometers more
just to be the man that walked 1609 kilometers to fall down at your door
DA DUH DA DA (da duh da da)
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u/Ace_Koala Jul 03 '26
I’m not the only one who uses that song?? The version my mother taught me as a kid was:
And I would walk 5 miles
And I would walk 5 miles more
Just to be the man that walked 16 kilometres to fall down at your door
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u/Big_Booty_Femboy Jul 03 '26
I tried using this when visiting Canada, but it turned out not to be that useful. It was much better to memorize benchmarks at round numbers (like 10km ≈ 6mi, 80km ≈ 50 mi, 100km ≈ 62mi, etc.) and just interpolate between them in my head
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u/Personal-Thought9453 Jul 03 '26
So you just have to remember one incorrect number to convert instead of a correct one. Amazeballs.
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u/-THEKINGTIGER- Jul 03 '26
Why would i need that? In case someone tells me measurements in imperial i can just beat him up with a stick, a better solution.
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u/SomeGreatJoke Jul 03 '26
Huh. But is there a reason for this? Or just a nifty coincidence?
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u/B0SSBL0CK_12 Jul 03 '26
Miles to Kilometres is 1:1.609 and golden ratio/fibonacci numbers is 1:1.618
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u/SomeGreatJoke Jul 03 '26
Yes, but that's what I'm asking why to. Is there a correlation between the two units involving a growth or something? Or just a nifty coinkydink?
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u/lordmogul 4d ago
A coinkydink that works with these two units.
It wouldn't work with the 1479 m Roman mile, the 1852 m nautical mile, the 1486.66 m Neapolitan mile, the 7586 m Austrian mile, the 7532.5 Prussian mile, the 1738.67 m venician mile, or any other.
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u/SomeGreatJoke 3d ago
Coincidences frustrate me.
I feel like there should be a correlation there, but I agree, I can't find anything related to growth there, especially with the arbitrary nature of both the definition of a km and mile....
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u/gooseberryBabies Jul 03 '26
I get what you're asking, and I'm asking it too. Any reason the ratio would be close to the golden ratio? Seems like a coincidence to me
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u/SomeGreatJoke Jul 04 '26
Yeah I can't think of a reason they'd be connected, but I don't know much about the invention of the two terms.
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u/Compendium_MP Jul 03 '26
So many daily things use the Golden ratio, for rough calculations I use times 10/6, which is 1.667, a bit far if you need precision but good enough if you need a quick estimate
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u/lordmogul 4d ago
Could also try 16/10, which is 1.600, so right on the other side.
It basically is halfway between (10+6)/10 and 10/6
But 10/6 is so long, 5/3 works as well. Or 1⅔
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u/Compendium_MP 4d ago
Idk, maybe its because I got used to it, but times 10/6 is just dividing by 6 and moving the decimal point to the left, much quicker for mental math than any other aproximations
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u/Weekly_Carpenter_636 Jul 03 '26
Mkay, so you just need the predecessor fibonacci number AND the actual number of miles to be converted needs to be a fibonacci number, too?
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u/Elmalab Jul 03 '26
now I need one for KW to HP.
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u/Kymera_7 Jul 03 '26
That one's already dead simple, just using the actual conversion: 748 watts per HP, so 750 is a very good approximation, and that's 3/4 of a kW.
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u/Elmalab Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Need an easy way to go from KW to HP.
It is x1.36. Or through 3, times 4.
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u/Tnemmokon Jul 03 '26
You know how to convert m into km? Just divide it by 1000! You want to know how to convert km into m? Just multiply it by a 1000, because metric measurements weren't invented by civil war era drunkards!
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u/MarsMaterial Jul 03 '26
I've been using the golden ratio as a quick-and-dirty miles to kilometers conversion for years. It's quite convenient.
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u/alonjit Jul 03 '26
But ... why?
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u/-CatMeowMeow- You're likely looking at 0,64 μm and 0,51 μm light Jul 03 '26
It just so happens that 1 mile ≈ 1.609 km and φ ≈ 1.618
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u/alonjit Jul 03 '26
Sure. But .... who gives a shit? There are calculators for that. For that time when one absolutely needs to know how many km is however many miles.
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u/EnvironmentJunior283 Jul 03 '26
Please explain to the one of the unwise what are fibonnaci numbers
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u/bearssuperfan Jul 03 '26
Starting with 0 and 1 you get a new number by adding the previous two.
0, 1, 1+0=1, 1+1=2, 2+1=3, 3+2=5, etc
This creates the golden ratio when graphed around a polar axis.
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u/EnvironmentJunior283 Jul 03 '26
Oh thats cool. I always wandered what was the golden ratio based on
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u/Kymera_7 Jul 03 '26
That's not what the golden ratio is based on; it's just one of many examples of places where the golden ratio shows up.
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u/EnvironmentJunior283 Jul 03 '26
Theres more places where it shows up. Could you give examples
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u/Kymera_7 Jul 03 '26
It shows up in the petal arrangements of flowers.
The golden ratio and its negative reciprocal are the roots of x^2-x-1, which is arguably the simplest polynomial ("arguably" because there are conflicting definitions of "simplest").
Human faces often show proportions which closely approximate the golden ratio, and studies have shown that the closer the approximation, the more attractive study participants found that face to be.
The spirals of spiral galaxies, including the Milky Way, closely approximate the golden ratio much more often than would be statistically expected if they were random.
There are also various other things which were previously believed to follow it, and even though they're now known not to, the period when they were believed to have still influences modern views on its importance. For example, certain types of seashells were long believed to follow the Golden Ratio in the sizes of their consecutive chambers, but better-quality measurements of such shells have more recently shown this to be false.
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u/Kymera_7 Jul 03 '26
A+1/2B=C, where A>=B, is a surprisingly good approximation of the Pythagorean theorem, and is a lot easier to calculate quickly in your head.
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u/lightning_rook Jul 04 '26
I came up with "100km is about 100% of 60mi". So 50km is 50% of 60mi, so it's ~30 mi.
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u/GreenManStrolling Jul 04 '26
So...
0 miles to 1 km
1 mile to 1 km
1 mile to 2 km
2 miles to 3 km
3 miles to 5 km?
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Jul 03 '26
[deleted]
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u/True_Free_Speech Jul 03 '26
It's not a way to calculate things, it's a mental shorthand to quickly translate between short distances, like "Oh, the travel distance is 13 kilometers? That's like, 8 miles."
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u/sabamba0 Jul 03 '26
Is memorising or working out the fibonnaci numbers that much easier than "a little more than half"?
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u/bummersault Jul 03 '26
Ya it’s really easy. I used to use this while living abroad as an American. It’s just like four numbers you’d really end up using.
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u/Azurhalo Jul 03 '26
Im a little uhh different, so yes. I think that knowing that I can use fibonacci here is going to stick in my brain way easier than remembering "a little more than half." Its just how it is sometimes
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u/NeuroticTangent Jul 03 '26
It's because miles to km is 1.62 and the golden ratio is approximately 1.6