Why there is a geometrical boundary condition on the rotated phi/fibonacci spiral?

931 Views Asked by At

When you draw a Fibonacci spiral in a quantized way , or more clearly from a golden rectangle geometrical construction based on Fibonacci numbers, and select one of arc nodes extremity to be the center of a rotation, three nodes away from it the spiral create a boundary as shown on the picture , is there a trigonometric formula which explain that boundary condition ? "phi-spiral"

enter image description here

1

There are 1 best solutions below

8
On BEST ANSWER

Third and fourth arc in your construction have centers which are aligned with the "first" point: as a consequence, a circle with center at the first point and passing through the fourth point is tangent to both arcs, giving the illusion of what you call "a defined boundary".

enter image description here

As a matter of fact, all arc endpoints in the spiral (blue points in diagram below) lie between exactly two arc centers (red points).

enter image description here

EDIT.

For a true golden spiral (red curve in diagram below), i.e. a logarithmic spiral with polar equation $r=a e^{b\theta}$ and $b=\ln\phi/(\pi/2)$, this feature is lost.

The evolute (locus of centers of curvature) of a logarithmic spiral, is another logarithmic spiral with polar equation $r=ab e^{b(\pi/2+\theta)}$ (black curve below). The evolute is rotated by $\pi/2$ with respect to the original spiral: the center of curvature of a point $A$ on the red spiral is the point $C$ on the black spiral and $\angle AOC=\pi/2$, where $O$ is the coordinate center. The blue circle (center $C$ and radius $AC$) is then the osculating circle at $A$.

For a golden spiral, however, point $C$ is not on the spiral itself: point $A'$ on the red spiral is near to $C$ but the circle with center $A'$ and radius $A'C$ (dashed in the diagram) is quite different from the osculating circle.

enter image description here

Notice that for different values of $b$ the evolute can be the the same as the spiral itself (see here for details). In that case you have exactly the feature you are looking for: every point on the spiral is the center of the osculating circle at a point which is an angle $2n\pi-\pi/2$ after it, where $n$ is an integer positive number.