Fibonacci Series and Fibonacci Calipers

During a gift exchange in which I participated, one of the recipients received a cryptic object: four pieces of wood, three of them pointed, all rivetted together into a type of caliper. This turned out to be a Fibonacci gauge, used for laying out the ratio of roughly 1:1.618 (also called the Golden Mean).

This got me wondering about the Fibonacci series. A quick browse around the Web returned this marvelous video explanation of the Fibonacci Series, the standard Wikipedia entry, and an entry from Linsay Staniforth's (sadly inactive) woodworking blog. All are "fun with numbers", even if you aren't a mathematician. But the caliper is a practical application of that fun, allowing you to find and create golden ratios quickly and easily.

You can buy a premade Fibonacci gauge, but you can also make your own using this simple plan. Once you have the gauge, take a quick spin of the Wood Magazine video on using a Fibonacci gauge. I almost gaurantee you'll be as excited as I am about making or otherwise acquiring this little tool.

Picture by Keith De'Grau, courtesy of handamerican.com

P.S. Found another good post on the Golden Section.