Cochlea

What if everything we see follows a mathematical equation? The cochlea is just such a shape. We have built a sound-insulated room in the form of a cochlea containing several experiments.

The shell of a snail, the cochlea, is in the shape of a logarithmic spiral, which means that it grows regularly with a constantly changing radius. The same spiral shape can be found in many places in nature. You can see a few examples of this in the shell’s opening on the wall to your left.

Several people have argued that the golden ratio appears in many natural forms. A few examples include:

• That your foot is the same length as your forearm.
• That your height matches the distance between your fingertips when you stretch your arms out.
• That the length of your nose is the same as that of your index finger measured from the second joint.
• That your belly button is placed so that the distance from your chin to your navel is the same as from your navel to your knee.

See for yourself!

In reality, there are of course great individual variations in both shape and proportions. For that reason, the golden ration proportions are only accurate sometimes.

The golden ratio

The golden ratio has been used since Antiquity as a measurement of regularity, beauty and harmony. It has played an important role in different art forms and been the norm within painting, masonry, photography and architecture.

A rectangle with sides that correspond to the golden ratio is called a golden rectangle.