Essays on Golden Mean

[Class Title]

Perhaps no other number has fascinated scientists, mathematicians and artists alike as the Golden Ratio. Also known as the golden mean or golden section (depending on its application), the Golden Ratio is observed by many people to occur naturally, manifesting itself in many natural shapes and geometry. This interesting phenomenon has resulted in an almost cult-like fascination among many people. In fact, there are people, including notable scientists and mathematicians with the likes of Johannes Kepler, Leonardo Da Vinci and Fra Luca Pacioli, who refer to the Golden Ratio as the ‘Divine Proportion,’ suggesting that the Golden ...

Brief Summary

In recent years, technology has moved so fast that since the advent of Google Earth, less than five years later, there are now companies that have sent their satellites into space to capture real-time images of the earth as reported by NOAA Satellites and Information (2016). This trend even received the attention of high profile celebrities and has been endorsed by George Clooney, who has collaborated with the Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) to help document crimes against humanity in the conflict-ridden Sub-Saharan region. (Tovrov, 2012). Cheaper, higher resolution, and complex satellites are being sent into the earth's stratosphere, some ...

Assignment #1 – Aristotle

Virtue or Vice: Aristotle’s Ethics of Friendship and the Ethical Problem of Prostitution Aristotle and the Ethics of Prostitution The best way to think about prostitution in an Aristotelian way is to think about whether or not a prostitute is a friend. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle spends a considerable amount of time on thinking about what constitutes friendship. However, can someone one procures sex for money be a friend? Furthermore, is prostitution a virtue or a vice? These are issues when thinking about these issues in terms of the Aristotelian tradition. In thinking about the issue of prostitution, two concepts ...

Mathematics 101

The Golden Ratio and Its Use The Golden Ratio (also known as the Golden Mean, the Golden Section, and the Divine Proportion) is the proportion of two quantities, such that their ratio is equal to the ratio of their sum to the biggest of those quantities. Due to its curious properties, throughout the history this ratio has been of interest not only to the mathematicians, but also to people of art – such as painters, architects, and designers. The studies of this ratio began in ancient Greece, being related to the geometric problem of cutting a line section into ...

TWO PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS OF HUMOR

Aristotle’s Mean and Addison’s Extreme: Two Philosophical Views of Humor Humor is one of the fundamental aspects of human experiences; as such, it has been studied by many great philosophers. The use of language to produce a humorous effect is somewhat of a mystery, and its particularities could be thought of as unique to the human species. Thus, the definition and characterization of humor is not unequivocal, with different thinkers conceptualizing it in different manners. Aristotle and Joseph Addison are only two of the most remarkable philosophers to study this philosophical problem. Through the analysis of the ...

The central claim of this paper is: the movie Million Dollar Baby is a cinematic argument containing the central thesis of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave from Republic and Aristotle’s moral philosophy from Nicomachean Ethics. First, the allegory of the cave will be explained as well as Aristotle’s theory of virtue. The paper will give examples from Eastwood’s film to back up the thesis, along with possible counterarguments. The story of the cave is Plato’s argument for how knowledge begins in darkness and ascends towards truth (517a). The ascent to knowledge is gradual. Darkness ...