Phyllotaxis
Named by 2 essays across 2 fields — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.
The rectangle that eats itself
Cut a square off a golden rectangle and what is left is a golden rectangle. That single property is the whole of the golden ratio, and it explains both what the number really does and most of what is wrongly claimed for it.
Three gaps and no more
Turn a circle by the same irrational angle over and over. The points never repeat and never settle, and yet at every single stage the gaps they leave take at most three different lengths — never four, at any number of steps, for any angle.
Named alongside it
The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.
Continued fractionsGolden ratioApproximationEquidistributionFibonacciIrrational rotationIterationLogarithmic spiralOrbitRecursionSelf similarityThree distance theorem