Mathematics, argues H.E. Huntley in his book, The Divine Proportion (1970) can be beautiful. This is not a radical notion in and of itself. After all is not the discipline of mathematics all about imposing the neatness, simplicity, and proportion of numbers onto seemingly random sequences? All of these principles are considered intrinsic to great art through much of Western history, writes Huntley. The Western musical scale is tonal, or based upon harmonics that are pleasing to the ear. Most of the structures that we live within are proportionate rather than disproportionate in their shape, based upon the principles of architecture.
             However, what may be radical and controversial about Huntley's text is that the author claims that beauty exists as a principle that is external and transcendent to any individual human being's ability to create either equations or art. In other words, beauty exists in nature, and our notions of beauty and mathematical symmetry and proportion exist outside of our culture and outside of our own opinions. We are a part of nature, nature is beautiful because it is proportional, and so we have notions of beauty ingrained in our consciousness, and reveal these principles through the logical rules of proportion in mathematics. Huntley calls this the a priori proof of beauty in nature. Beauty can be rationally proven.
             Thus because the proof of the existence of beauty can be found in nature, and because in the principles of geometry and mathematics there is numerical proof of nature's symmetry, all this demonstrates why certain works of art and music are so pleasing to the eye and ea-because they mirror the principles of nature. Huntley argues that the 'Golden Ratio' also known as phi, is the supreme proof that God is a mathematician and that the mathematician and creator God appreciates nature. Phi is the letter in the Greek alphabet that denotes the 'Golden Ratio' and Gre...