INTRODUCTION
The Golden Section is a fascinating topic that continually generates new ideas. It also has a status that leads many people to assume its presence when it has no relation to a problem. It often forces a blindness to other alternatives when intuition is followed rather than logic. Mathematical inexperience may also be a cause of some of these problems. In the following, my aim is to fill in some gaps, so that correct value judgements may be made and to show how new ideas can be developed on the rich subject area of spirals and the Golden section.

Since this special issue of the NNJ is concerned with the Golden Section, I am not describing its properties unless appropriate. I shall use the symbol f to denote the Golden section (f»1.61803).

There are many aspects to Golden section spirals, and much more could be written. The parts of this paper are meant to be read sequentially, and it is especially important to understand the different types of spirals in order that the following parts are seen in context:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Sharp has researched and taught Geometry and Art for over 20 years in Adult Education in and around London. He is the illustrator of David Wells' Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Geometry and has written his own book on modelling geometrical surfaces called Sliceforms, some of which are in the "Strange Surfaces" exhibit in the Science Museum in London.

Copyright ©2002 Kim Williams