Golden Triangle
The golden triangle, sometimes also called the sublime triangle, is an isosceles triangle such that the ratio of the hypotenuse
to base
is equal to the
golden ratio,
. From the
above figure, this means that the triangle has vertex angle equal to
 |
(1)
|
or
, and that the height
is related to the
base
through
The inradius of a golden triangle is
 |
(5)
|
The triangles at the tips of a pentagram (left figure) and obtained by dividing a decagon by connecting opposite
vertices (right figure) are golden triangles. This follows from the fact that
 |
(6)
|
for a pentagram and that the circumradius
of a decagon of side
length
is
 |
(7)
|
Golden triangles and gnomons can be dissected into smaller triangles that are golden gnomons and golden triangles (Livio 2002, p. 79).
Successive points dividing a golden triangle into golden gnomons and triangles lie
on a logarithmic spiral (Livio 2002, p. 119).
Kimberling (1991) defines a second type of golden triangle in which the ratio of angles is
, where
is the golden
ratio.
SEE ALSO: Decagon,
Golden Gnomon,
Golden Ratio,
Golden
Rectangle,
Isosceles Triangle,
Penrose
Tiles,
Pentagram
REFERENCES:
Bicknell, M.; and Hoggatt, V. E. Jr. "Golden Triangles, Rectangles, and
Cuboids." Fib. Quart. 7, 73-91, 1969.
Hoggatt, V. E. Jr. The
Fibonacci and Lucas Numbers. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1969.
Kimberling, C. "A New Kind of Golden Triangle." In Applications of Fibonacci Numbers: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Fibonacci
Numbers and Their Applications,' Wake Forest University (Ed. G. E. Bergum,
A. N. Philippou, and A. F. Horadam). Dordrecht, Netherlands:
Kluwer, pp. 171-176, 1991.
Livio, M. The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number. New
York: Broadway Books, pp. 78-79, 2002.
Pappas, T. "The Pentagon, the Pentagram & the Golden Triangle." The
Joy of Mathematics. San Carlos, CA: Wide World Publ./Tetra, pp. 188-189,
1989.
Schoen, R. "The Fibonacci Sequence in Successive Partitions of a Golden Triangle."
Fib. Quart. 20, 159-163, 1982.
Wang, S. C. "The Sign of the Devil... and the Sine of the Devil."
J. Rec. Math. 26, 201-205, 1994.
CITE THIS AS:
Weisstein, Eric W. "Golden Triangle."
From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/GoldenTriangle.html