The ancients found a number that they called the Golden Mean:
It’s not a half, it’s not two thirds, but somewhere in between.
They made a rectangle with that proportion to its sides,
And saw that all of nature’s beauty there, within, resides.
One Filius Bonacci came along and studied rabbits
And, counting the production from their well-known breeding habits,
He came upon a number sequence (all through nature seen)
Whose ratios, one to the next, approach the Golden Mean!
Then enter Bela Bartok onto music’s lofty stage,
The Golden Mean behind his work, displayed on every page,
In Fibonacci numbers all his notes and phrases squeezing;
The consequence— his music to the ear is very pleasing.
The list goes on and on of where the Golden Mean appears,
And many mathematicians have been studying for years
This amazing little number once discovered by the Greeks—
Amazing that it’s with this number all Creation creaks.
—Anon A. Mouse