Life and .618 (2)

In Life and .618, I laid out a way of looking at plant growth which suggests that leaf phyllotaxy, stele growth, branch "phyllotaxy", and flower phyllotaxy are all interrelated in growth. This requires us to view plant growth as a matter of precisely aligned cell positioning - a set of proportions based on Fibonacci numbers, the Golden Angle and log spirals. At present cell growth is seen as a matter of doubling allied with a sort of jostling for position akin to people stepping on an elevator and taking positions as far from each other as possible - a sort of collision-based packing. This is incompatible with the sort of precise alignment actually present.

But to analyze the alignment as it is we need the tools that would work on these different proportions. We need a unified understanding of log spirals, Fibonacci numbers and the Golden Angle. (TBC)