## The spiral of Nautiloids has nothing to do with Phi

There’s an interesting post at God Plays Dice about how $\Phi$ is less significant in nature than many think it is, with links to a few different posts by others.

The really interesting bit, both in terms of paleontology and math, is the link to an article from the March 2005 issue of The College Mathematics Journal. For paleontologists, the key bit is on pages 126-127: the author measured several nautilus shells, and never got close to $\Phi$, even though of course it’s still a logarithmic spiral.

I’ve been meaning to post on this for a while, but it kept getting lost in the shuffle of prepping for exams, getting ready for GSA, and the ordinary day-to-day work of school. Despite the fact that it wasn’t much of a post. But, I’ll be done with exams for a bit after this week, I’ve given my presentation at GSA (which seemed to go pretty well), and gotten back to Virginia.

Anyway, the point is, I’ll try and not be as lame about updating. For all two of you reading this.

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### One Response to “The spiral of Nautiloids has nothing to do with Phi”

1. Callan Bentley Says:

Keep up the blogging, Jay!

CB