GOLDEN TRIANGLES AND RECTANGLES
Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
–John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn
According to Martin Gardner (1914–2010), a popular Scientific American columnist, “Pi (
) is the best known of all irrational numbers. The irrational number 
is not so well-known, but it expresses a fundamental ratio that is almost as ubiquitous as pi, and it has the same amusing habit of popping up where least expected.” Gardner made this trenchant observation in 1959. In the preceding chapter, we found that the ubiquitous number 
makes spectacular appearances in plane geometry. As can be predicted, it does also in solid geometry; see Chapter 18.
Some triangles, such as the golden triangle, are linked to the golden ratio in a mysterious way. We begin our pursuit with a simple definition.
17.1 GOLDEN TRIANGLE
An isosceles triangle is a golden triangle if the ratio of a lateral side to the base is 
.
We now pursue some interesting properties ...
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