IA Math: Golden Ratio in

Great Pyramid of Giza

The Australian International School

LY, Quynh Nhu

Subject: Mathematics SL
Contents
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................................... 2
BODY ........................................................................................................................................................... 3
1. Key words to discuss: ....................................................................................................................... 3
GOLDEN RATIO ............................................................................................................................... 3
THE PI ................................................................................................................................................. 4
Different theories about how the pyramids is constructed with ϕ...................................................... 4
#Method 1: Combine Phi and Pythagorean theorem together ............................................................. 4
#Method 2: Using area of the face and area of the square formed by its height ................................. 5
#Method 3: Estimate the Great Pyramid dimensions ........................................................................... 6
#Method 4: Estimate the pyramid with constant gradient varies ......................................................... 7
#Method 5: Using Euler’s number: ...................................................................................................... 8
#Other methods about Phi and Pi relationship..................................................................................... 9
3. Compare the math to other ancient building ................................................................................. 11
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 12

INTRODUCTION
I’m interested in ancient Egypt society, so I decided to work on something related to it.
Obviously, pyramid is the symbol of Egypt and it’s famous for its perfect structure. The ancient
Egypt built a lot of pyramids along the Egypt border, but I want to focus on the biggest to narrow
down the topic. The Great Pyramid of Giza is considered as one of the most incredible building
in the world and the biggest pyramid which have ever seen. It is a symbol of Egypt, located on
Giza plateau near Cairo and was built for over 20 years. Before the Eiffel tower was build, the
Great Pyramid of Giza is the tallest building made by human in the history. The pyramid has the
height of 146 meters and the base of 230 meters, made by 20 million blocks of stones. There are
many theory about how the pyramid are made, but the most famous is Golden Ratio. The
purpose of this IA is to research more about the math and science of the ancient in general, and
focus on the math behind the Great Pyramid.

BODY

1. Key words to discuss:

GOLDEN RATIO
The Golden Ratio is the ratio where the ratio of the whole line to the larger line segment equal to
the ratio of the larger line segment to the smaller line segment. The Golden Ratio is usually
symbolled by using the Greek 21st letter of the alphabet, ϕ. In theory, the digit of the Golden
Ratio is going on forever, into infinity. Usually, it will be rounded into 1.1618 for easier doing
the calculator.

Golden Ratio is used widen around the world, especial in architecture, mathematics and
geometry.

THE PI

The pi is the ratio of the diameter of the circle to the circumference. It was represent by 16th
Greek letter, π, no matter how big or small the circle, there will be only the same pi. Pi is a
irrational number, which mean it cannot be written with a simple fraction or number, so it
usually rounded into 3.14.

The Pi had been discovered 4,000 years ago by the Babylonians, and the Egyptian was
discovered in the pi, too. So it’s appropriate that the Great pyramids is built by using this
number.

Different theories about how the pyramids is constructed with ϕ

I came up with some method that likely to be used by the Egypt ancient and find the error
percentage of the result to find the different of the theory combined to the real size of the tr

#Method 1: Combine Phi and Pythagorean theorem together

Phi is the only number which has its square larger than itself 1 unit:

ϕ + 1 = ϕ2 ∴ 1.618… + 1 = 2.618…

Apply to Pythagorean theorem: a2 + b2 = c2

From that, we can constructed the pyramids with the base of 2, the height of the square root of ϕ.

𝜙
The ratio of the height to the base: = 0.636
2

As what I have mentioned above in the introduction, the Great pyramid of Giza have the height
of 146m and the base of 230m, to 3sf.

146
≈ 0.6347
230

After that, I calculate error percentage from my calculation to the real Great Pyramid:

0.6347 – 0.636 = -0.0013

Take absolute value: |-0.0013| = 0.0013

0.0013
≈ 0.0020
0.636

0.0020 x 100 ≈ 0.204%

#Method 2: Using area of the face and area of the square formed by its height
Herodotus had proved the relationship between the area of the surface of the face of the pyramid
to the area of the square formed by its height.

From that, I know that:

Area of the face = Area of the square formed by its height

(2r × s) / 2 = h²

Apply the Pythagorean Theorem into the equation, we have: r2 + h2 = s2 ∴ s2 – r2 = h2

So r x s = s2 – r2

Assume that r is 1: s = s2 – 1 (express the other dimensions in relation to it)

s2 – s – 1 = 0

Using the graphic calculator to calculate this quadratic formula, I have one positive solution: s =
1.618… = ϕ

By doing this calculation, I can prove that the Egypt people using Golden ratio to contrucst the
pyramid. However, I don’t know how they apply the Golden Ratio in building the Great Pyramid
yet, thought there are some relevance about the this method and the Golden ratio.

#Method 3: Estimate the Great Pyramid dimensions

First thing, I don’t think the ancient Egypt will use this method to construct the Pyramid.

Construct a circle with the circumference of 8, which is the same as the circumference of the
base width of 2 pyramid.

If we fold the arc of the semi - circle at the right triangle (90o), the height of that semi-circle will
equal to the radius of circle, which is 1.272.

The result is only 1/10th of a percent different than the height of 1.272 computed above using the
Golden Ratio. Applying this to the 146.5 meter height of the pyramid would result in a difference
in height between the two methods of only 0.14 meters.

#Method 4: Estimate the pyramid with constant gradient varies

This method using the seked as the main variable. The seked is an ancient term used by the
ancient Egypt to measure of slope or gradient, it is based on the Egyptian system of measure in
which 1 cubit can be divided into 7 palms and 1 palm is equal to 4 digits.

The theory is that the Great Pyramid is based on the application of a gradient of 5.5 sekeds. This
measure means that for a pyramid height of 1 cubit, which is 7 palms, its base would be 5.5
palms. The ratio of height to base then is 7 divided by 5.5 = 1.2727. This is very close to the
square root of Phi, which is 1.27202. The slope of a pyramid created with sekeds would be
51.84°, while that of a pyramid based on phi is 51.83°. The seked method was known to be used
for the construction of some pyramids, but not all.

If we apply this method on the Great Pyramid of the height of 146.618 meters on a base of 230.4
meters, we can find it is 0.018 meters graters than the estimation of the theory. The error
percentage is 0.8%, which mean this result is very close to the dimensions of the real Great
Pyramid. However, in this method, not only with me but other mathematics or researchers still
have many questions remaining: Why 5.5 would be chosen over some other number for the
gradient, and this is also an unknown parts that might be inaccurate in this method. How the
ancient Egypt chose this number and apply it correctly so it have the same result as the Golden
ratio? What is the different of using 5.5 rather than simply using a gradient based on 5 or 6, and
how using 5.5 can make the result more accurate than 5 or 6? How can we know that 5.5 is more
accurate and reasonable than 5 and 6?

#Method 5: Using Euler’s number:

By taking some of the data from the 4th method, we have:

4 x 51.85° / 76.30° = e (99.998%)

tan 51.85° = 4 / π (99.99%)
cos 51.85° = 1 / ϕ (99.95%)
sin 51.85° = 4 / πϕ (99.94%)

The constant e, known as Euler’s number, wasn’t discovered until 1618. Consider the possibility
that this was merely rediscovery. We are generally so accepting of the myth of linear progress
that it is easy to forget that sometimes knowledge is lost and not rediscovered for a very long
time, if ever. For example, it has been said that the plumbing system in the palace of Knossos,
Crete built in 1900 BCE wasn’t matched until circa 1900 CE in England.
#Other methods about Phi and Pi relationship

After going through these method, I found it hard to assume that the ancient Egypt people aware
of the existance of the pi and phi as modern people. And even if they know about these method, I
don’t have evidence that they was understood the properties of the circle – its diameter or the
pyramid, the golden ratio, since they were haven’t been invented at this time (It was first recored
in the history of the Greeks hundreds years later). Sometimes, I came up with an idea, could it be
a concatenation that the ancient Egypt didn’t use the Golden Ratio in their calculation, and we,
the modern researcher find out the relevance between the Golden Ratio in the actual size of the
Great Pyramid and we assumed that the ancient Egypt used it in contructing the pyramid. Since
we haven’t discovered evidence that anicent Egypt using Golden ratio in any historical records.

The Great Pyramid could thus have been based on 22/7 or 14/11, which is the same as 7/5.5, in
the geometries shown above. Even if the Egyptians only understood pi and/or phi through their
integer approximations, the fact that the pyramid uses them shows that there was likely some
understanding and intent of their mathematical importance in their application. It’s possible
though that the pyramid dimensions could have been intended to represent only one of these
numbers, either pi or phi, and the mathematics would have included the other automatically.
(Charles William Johnson)
 A detail of the calculations of these methods is shown below:

Pyramid Base Height Base/2 Height/ Angle Angle to Actual % Variance

(m) (m) (m) (Base/2) Radians degrees (m) from Actual

Great Pyramid of 230.4 146.500 115.20 1.271701 0.90443531 51.82033 - -

Giza

Phi Geometry 2.0 1.272 1.00 1.272020 0.90455689 51.82729 - -

Phi to scale 230.4 146.537 115.20 1.272020 0.90455689 51.82729 0.0367 0.0215%

Pi Geometry (8/π/2) 2.0 1.273 1.00 1.273240 0.90502258 51.85397 - -

Pi to scale 230.4 146.678 115.20 1.273240 0.90502258 51.85397 - -

5.5 Seked 230.4 146.618 115.20 1.272727 0.90482709 51.84277 - -

3. Compare the math to other ancient building

#The Golden ratio in the Parathenon

The Parathenon is a temple builded and constructed by the ancient Greek to workship by the
Greek statesman called Pericles.

Firstly, I want to research about the Fabonacci Sequence, it is a sequence of number which war
introduced into the world by Leonardo de Pisa. In that sequence, we can find the next term by
adding to nearest term togerther. It was first discovered by the Indian an Middle East
mathematics in 1200 BC.

After research, I found that: the ratio between two term of Fibonacci numbers is close to the
Golden Ratio. Therefore, as the numbers in the sequence get closer, the ratio gets closer to the
Golden Ratio; it reaches a limit close to 1.618 (Emily Borg)
CONCLUSION

In conclusion, what I have found is the Golden ratio has many relevance with the way the
pyramids was contructed and built. Although I couldn’t prove exactly were ancient Egypt
applied the Golden Ratio into the construction progress due to lack of evidence. Golden Ratio
may is used widen, there are many ancient buildings which Golden Ratio may be applied.

BIBILOGRAPHY
“Does the Parthenon Really Follow the Golden Ratio?” HowStuffWorks, April 22, 2015.
https://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/parthenon-golden-ratio.htm.
Giota Skouroliakou. “Parthenon and Golden Ratio.” Education, 19:39:45 UTC.
https://www.slideshare.net/pskou/parthenon-and-golden-ratio.
“Pyramids of Giza | History & Facts | Britannica.Com.” Accessed September 1, 2019.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pyramids-of-Giza.
“Thales and the Measurement of the Great Pyramid.” Accessed September 6, 2019.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/maths-linear-quadratic-relations/0/steps/12094.
“The Parthenon and Phi, the Golden Ratio.” The Golden Ratio: Phi, 1.618, January 20, 2013.
https://www.goldennumber.net/parthenon-phi-golden-ratio/.
“The Parthenon and the Golden Ratio » Discovering Design.” Accessed September 6, 2019.
https://blogs.lt.vt.edu/emilyborg/2014/09/24/the-parthenon-and-the-golden-ratio/.