The Incredible New Kaleidoscope Eclectic Review page 1

KALEIDOSCOPE
ECLECTIC REVIEW
Volume 2, Issue 2
































Copyright 1999, 2013-2014 B. Bensley
The Incredible New Kaleidoscope Eclectic Review page 2























Welcome to The Incredible
New Kaleidoscope Eclectic
Review!
By Brett Bensley, Editor
Why the new name? I just couldnt keep things
constant. Everything grows and matures, or at least it
should.
When I first started this magazine, it was called
Kaleidoscope Review. This was appropriate for its
purpose at the time. I would review kaleidoscopes,
artists, stores, and more in each issue. I would still do
that if some of you would send in materials, pictures, or
items for the reviews. SEND THEM IN!
After a number of years of being absent, I restarted the
magazine in its current form and changed the name to
differentiate it from the past issues. Thus is became
The New Kaleidoscope Review. This suited its needs
and purpose.
I would send our emails and notices that The New
Kaleidoscope Review was available and used the initials
in the correspondence: TNKR. Every time I read that,
my mind added I and E making it TINKER. I
thought this was appropriate as well. So I pondered
about the two additional words to make it TINKER.
Incredible as it seemed, Incredible was an easy choice.
It fit nicely within The New. But finding the E word
was a challenge. Eclectic came to me out of the blue
after searching for all the positive E words. Eclectic
seemed very appropriate for the E word to change the
initials to TINKER. And it seemed that was the way
this magazine seemed to be heading anyway. So
Eclectic, deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad
and diverse range of sources, is the appropriate word
to describe this magazine. The other definition, of,
denoting, or belonging to a class of ancient
philosophers who did not belong to or found any
recognized school of thought but selected such
doctrines as they wished from various schools, is
more about me and my ideas as regarding
kaleidoscopes and the kaleidoscope world.
Enough about the new name. Enjoy this issue and all
future issues!

Fibonacci and the Golden
Angle
For those that have math anxiety, I recommend you
put this down and read one of the other issues
available.
When we discuss Fibonacci, we will not be discussing
Marc Tickles kaleidoscope. We will be talking about
the golden ratio and the golden angle.
What is the golden ratio?
The golden ratio exists if the ratio between two values
is the same as the ratio of the sum of the two values to
the larger of the two values.
Or if (a + b)/a = a/b.
Fibonacci is involved because the ratio of the Fibonacci
sequence approaches the golden ratio.
To simplify, this ratio makes the object more attractive
to the viewer. There are many noted references
mentioning this ratio on the internet these days.
Ancient Greeks used it in their architecture.
What does this have to do with kaleidoscopes?
I am suggesting that the height of the scopes diameter
to length use this ratio. Though we have to use
discretion, if our kaleidoscope is eight inches long, then
the diameter might be more pleasing at about three
inches.
Check around your collection of scopes. See how
many might be approaching this general shape and how
they affect you. Personally, I like the way these look on
a shelf or in the hand. If they get too long, or too short
and stubby, they just dont look as nice, but are still
attractive.
I am not recommending this as a rule, because as all
well know, I do not follow this in my scopes, but have
on some of my more popular selling scopes.
You may include the turning chamber in this ratio as
part of your design. In our previous case, I would have
an eight inch long kaleidoscope body with a three inch
diameter and the turning part holding the object case
would also be about three inches of the total eight inch
body length.





The Incredible New Kaleidoscope Eclectic Review page 3


There are many web pages dedicated to the wonderful
golden ratio, and I recommend you take some time to
view a few.
But the golden ratio is applied to circular images as
well. Where do we kaleidoscope lovers and artists find
such a circular image? Inside the kaleidoscope.
I will get down to the simple detail here, the optimum
angle making the golden angle is about 137.508.
Although making a kaleidoscope with the mirrors at
137.508 degrees between them is not optimum, those
angles that combine to make up an almost 137.508
degrees will be most pleasant.
As you can see to the table to the right, we can see that
a number of our perfect kaleidoscope angles will be
close to the golden angle when added.
One of my favorites is the 45 degree mirror system,
and guess where that ends up:
137.508/45 = 3.05573
Here I am dividing the 137.508 by the 45 degrees to get
the number of times. I could have divided the 137.508
by the three to get what the angle should be.
My 45 degree angle is very close to fitting nicely, three
times, in the 137.508 degree golden angle!
Let us try another:
137.508/6 = 22.918
This is close to the 22.5 degrees for a 16 point
reflection kaleidoscope!
As you continue to decrease the degrees and increase
the reflections, the more frequent it gets close or
matches the golden angle. Could this be why the 180,
90, and 60 degree mirror systems are not as liked or as
popular as those that are very close to the golden angle?
My suggestions are that you can design a kaleidoscope
that takes advantage of this proven (in other fields)
concept and apply it to your kaleidoscope artistry.
Check your scopes that you either make or buy and see
how well it matches the golden angle and the golden
ratio.



degree (n)
Reflections =
360/n
180 2
90 4
60 6
45 8
36 10
30 12
25.71 14
22.5 16
20 18
18 20
16.36 22
15 24
13.85 26
12.86 28
12 30
11.25 32
10.59 34
10 36
9.47 38
9 40
8.57 42
8.18 44
7.83 46
7.5 48
7.2 50

The Incredible New Kaleidoscope Eclectic Review page 4


































THI S I S A S HORT I S S UE
I am sorry for keeping this short, but I am working on
a future issue to continue this subject and more.
There are so many planned projects that I wanted to
keep your interest. Next issue, I hope, will be a
construction issue with a project for the golden ratio
and one for kaleidoscope building. I also have planned
some kind of competition for kaleidoscope artists. I
am working on the details for this to make it fair, but
enjoyable for all.
Above all, please email me with ideas, pictures, concept
for future issues of The Incredible New Kaleidoscope
Eclectic Review (TINKER).
Also, visit our facebook page:
Search for The New Kaleidoscope Review
And join!

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