My project has finally been completed after way more than two weeks of work, but when you really get into a project it becomes so enjoyable that you like spending extra time on it. As you probably know by now, my project was on the golden ratio and how it applies to interpersonal relationships. Just for a quick recap, the golden ratio is a ratio found in nature that has been found to be aesthetically pleasing to humans. It is directly related to the Fibonacci sequence, a sequence studied by scores of mathematicians for centuries because of its prevalence in the world around us. I read other studies about how people choose friends based off of others having similar personalities to themselves, and how people with the golden ratio in their faces are perceived as more aesthetically pleasing. I decided to combine these two ideas together for my project and see if people who have more aesthetically pleasing faces are friends with those that have a similar aesthetically pleasing face.
As I said in my last post, two of the ratios I used did not show a great correlation, but the third showed that, even for my small amount of data, there is a possibility that people in friend groups are clumped by their facial features’ deviation from perfection. It was so cool finally being able to see all my hard work paying off, and I was glad I actually was able to come out of this project with some sort of better understanding of how genetics may play a large role in how we choose our friendships.
The ratio I found to fit my hypothesis was that between the width of the nose and the width of the mouth, with nose width being 1 and mouth width being 1.618, or phi, the golden number. Some other observations I made in my data were that some people’s ratios on certain parts of their face were identical to the ratios on other parts of their face, while others were extremely off. I have no idea what this could mean, but a possible future project could be looking into the aesthetics of not a face with the golden ratio, but a face that exhibits the same ratio throughout. I also noticed that people in the same friend groups did not have facial ratios that were all above or all below the perfect ratio, but on either side pretty much evenly. I didn’t delve further into what that could mean, but it could be a future project idea.
Although I only had about 300 data points, I think because of what I observed in my statistical analysis this project could be taken further in the future. I think with more data points and more schools it could be expanded upon. I think if I had the time and I could use a group of about 300 friends (besides the complications that would cause with the whole six degrees of separation thing) I could really discover if this would work.
I read something about the golden ratio in high school, and I thought it was really fascinating. The idea that physical attraction could be explained by a numerical ratio is something I’m sure math geeks have dreamed of at one point or another. The testing of golden ratio and its relations to perception of beauty has historically been inconclusive. But I’ve read in an article that some scientists have found in an experiment that we find faces that are symmetrical (which tend to look more average) more attractive than faces with highlighted features and disproportional ratios. Do you think this could be related to the golden ratio? Anyways, I really liked your project and I look forward to hearing your presentation!