History
The name plastic number (het plastische getal in Dutch) was given to this number in 1928 by Dom Hans van der Laan. Unlike the names of the golden ratio and silver ratio, the word plastic was not intended to refer to a specific substance, but rather in its adjectival sense, meaning something that can be given a three-dimensional shape. This is because, according to Padovan, the characteristic ratios of the number, 3/4 and 1/7, relate to the limits of human perception in relating one physical size to another.
Read more about this topic: Plastic Number
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)