Does Amber Heard really have the world's most beautiful face? Why the Golden Ratio test is bogus
Amber Heard has one of the world's most beautiful faces—that is, according to cosmetic surgeon Julian De Silva. The claim has been recycled for some years now, and recently resurfaced in the wake of Heard's (widely reported) ...
But what is this claim based on?
Well, according to De Silva, Heard rates highly on the "Golden Ratio test." This test rates a person's facial beauty based on how close their facial proportions are to the Golden Ratio. But is it really a formula for beauty?
The Pythagoreans and the Golden Ratio
The Pythagoreans first discovered the Golden Ratio, also called the "Divine Proportion," about 2,400 years ago. It's a mathematical value called "phi," represented by the Greek symbol φ, and equal to about 1.618.
The Pythagoreans were a mystic cult of mathematicians who saw many numbers as having mystical, philosophical and even ethical significance. They chose the pentagram as their symbol. With its five-fold symmetries, it symbolized health to them.
Pentagrams are mathematically fascinating, not least because they evince the curious ratio φ. In the pentagram pictured, the four bolded black lines grow in length by φ at each step. So the long horizontal line is φ longer than the bolded side length.
Pentagrams contain the Golden Ratio φ. Author provided