Oh, that field of mathematics. Don’t you love to hate it? However, you have to admit that when someone explains something of its beauty to you and you understand it, you marvel at how amazing a field actually is.

Such is the case with number sequences and, in particular, a so-called Fibonacci sequence. For those who do not know what a sequence is, it is simply a list of numbers that follow some predefined rule. For example, the sequence 2, 4, 6, 8 is the arithmetic sequence that is defined by multiples of the number 2. The Fibonacci sequence is the following: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 … do you see the pattern? Well wait if you don’t; What’s more important, or should I say interesting, is that you’ve ever guessed that this sequence has something to do with sex appeal? Indeed. Keep reading.

If you couldn’t see the pattern within the Fibonacci sequence, this is it: Each successive Fibonacci number after the second is obtained by adding the previous two numbers in the sequence. So 3 = 1 + 2, 8 = 3 + 5, etc. Aside from the unusual appearance of these numbers within the realms of nature, for example, quantities such as the number of black and white keys that make up an octave on a standard piano are all Fibonacci numbers, and the number of spirals in the florets of a sunflower head are consecutive Fibonacci numbers; the quotient formed by consecutive numbers in this sequence is getting closer and closer to the golden ratio, and this is approximately 1.618.

Classical artists, musicians and architects have been fascinated by this famous number, which seems to have a sex appeal of its own. The ancient Greek sculptor Phidias, who created and supervised the construction of the Parthenon in Athens, is believed to have used this golden rectangle concept on the façade of this famous architectural feat. Luca Pacioli, one of Da Vinci’s mathematics teachers, aroused great interest in the golden number in his De Divina Proportione. Da Vinci used this work to reinforce his claims that various aspects of the human body incorporated this golden number. For example, Da Vinci showed that the human face had proportions commensurate with the golden ratio. To show this, Da Vinci drew golden rectangles on the face of an average human subject. It could be assumed that the more golden rectangles that were drawn, the more aesthetically pleasing a person’s face was.

Obviously, good looks are associated with an aesthetically attractive face. According to the proposals of Luca Pacioli and Da Vinci, the more closely the face adheres to the proportions dictated by the golden ratio, the more aesthetically attractive a person is. Wow, now the math is connected to sex appeal. How strange and curious this topic is! Yes. Sex appeal and math. You have one, you definitely have the other. All these sexy things are within a sequence of numbers that was probably found by some curious guy who decided to add 1 + 1 to get 2, and then said, hmmm, let’s add 2 + 1 to get 3, and so on. The next thing you know, these numbers appear everywhere, from the piano keyboard to the face of a sunflower to the sex appeal of the human face. Wow, you don’t love math!