The Golden Rectangle and Michael Phelps

Successive Golden Rectangles dividing a Golden Rectangle into squares (Michael Phelps in Beijing 2008).

A golden rectangle is a rectangle whose side lengths are in the golden ratio, one-to-phi, that is, approximately 1:1.618. A distinctive feature of this shape is that when a square section is removed, the remainder is another golden rectangle, that is, with the same proportions as the first. Square removal can be repeated infinitely, which leads to an approximation of the golden or Fibonacci spiral.

Fibonacci numbers (0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34...) are a sequence of numbers named after Leonardo of Pisa, known as Fibonacci. The first number of the sequence is 0, the second number is 1, and each subsequent number is equal to the sum of the previous two numbers of the sequence itself.

Michael Fred Phelps (born June 30, 1985) is an American swimmer and 14-time Olympic Gold medalist (most by any Olympian), who currently holds seven world records. He holds the record, surpassing Mark Spitz, of eight gold medals at a single Olympics. He also shares the record (with Soviet gymnast Alexander Dityatin) of the most medals (of any type) at a single Olympics—eight, which Phelps has accomplished twice, at Athens in 2004 and at Beijing in 2008.