Joy of ...

Ever since "Joy of Sex", people come up with Joy of this and Joy of that books, such as Joy of Cooking. One math book I saw was "Joy of Sets". The author must be thinking of the first "Joy of" book I mentioned above when writing that.

Recently I saw an advertisement on a magazine: the Joy of Mathematics. It is some lectures on DVD. Ok I have not seen it myself and I can't tell you how good or bad it is. But this ought to be on TV! The only math program I ever see are ADULTS learning fractions.

Perhaps most educated in math agree that one of the most fun number series is the Fibonacci numbers (and the relationship to the golden ratio &phi). This author even came up with this:

I think Fibonacci is fun;
We start with a 1 and a 1.
Then 2, 3, 5, 8,
But don't stop there, mate!
The fun has just barely begun.

Ok, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. add previous two numbers to get the next one, just what so fun about it?

The fun is.... as n grows large, divide any pair of neighbors, it.. it will reach the golden ratio (1+sqrt(5)) / 2! Well, what's so golden about the golden ratio? MANY. Even Mona Lisa was based on it. There are many book length discussions of this number (um, some of these books contain a lot of fluff). See this list on Amazon if you don't believe me.

My book devoted a few pages on it.