## 2008-04-06

### Computer Taught To Recognize Attractiveness In Women

"Beauty," goes the old saying, "is in the eye of the beholder." But does the beholder have to be human? (Credit: iStockphoto)
clipped from www.independent.ie

When it comes to examining the perfect face, scientists say it all comes down to geometry. Declan Cashin reports

Scientists at the University of Nebraska say they have developed software that can predict whether or not a face will be deemed beautiful, using a calculation that calibrates the symmetry and geometry of the face.

Amazingly, the boffins' beauty results are practically identical to a code that da Vinci and the Old Masters followed to paint perfect beauty back in the 15th century.

Perfect proportion: model Kate Moss has the so-called 'golden ratio' between mouth and nose width, at 1.618

clipped from en.wikipedia.org
Golden ratio

The golden section is a line segment sectioned into two according to the golden ratio. The total length a+b is to the longer segment a as a is to the shorter segment b.

Leonardo Da Vinci's illustration from De Divina Proportione applies geometric proportions to the human face.

A pentagram colored to distinguish its line segments of different lengths. The four lengths are in golden ratio to one another.

A Fibonacci spiral that approximates the golden spiral, using Fibonacci sequence square sizes up to 34.

A regular square pyramid is determined by its medial right triangle, whose edges are the pyramid's apothem (a), semi-base (b), and height (h); the face inclination angle is also marked. Mathematical proportions b:h:a of $1:\sqrt{\varphi}:\varphi$ and $3:4:5\$ and $1:4/\pi:1.61899\$ are of particular interest in relation to Egyptian pyramids.

The sculpture Ratio by Andrew Rogers in Jerusalem is proportioned according to Fibonacci numbers; some call it Golden Ratio.