Thursday, October 23, 2008

What is Beauty...

I came across an interesting documentary on Discovery Science on the subject beauty.
over centuries it has been debated on the universal accepted term of beauty. Kings of ancient time regard round and big bellies are nice and beautiful. However that is no longer the case in modern days.

I say that is no longer the case because we can hardly see an 'unattractive' people on billboard, magazines, TV or even radio. A character in FRIENDS (Joey to be precise) once mentioned "...then I would have done it all...drama, movie and musical...radio...everybody knows that's for ugly people"

But even so, that is probably arguable. Humans often associate beauty with good and best quality.
Another aspect which caught my intention watching the show was the relation between mathematics and science of beauty. The Romans came up with the idea that the closer the proportionality of human body parts to the ratio 1 : 1.618, the more attractive you are.

What the Romans are trying to say is that every part of our body is subject to mathematical equation and the theory is that if you divide the distance from the top of your head to the naval and bottom of your feet to your naval, it will give you the ratio 1 : 1.618.

Homer here will help us illustrate it further:



It does not only stop there, you can go on to other parts of the body, eg: width of the lips to the width of the nose, width of your front teeth to the next smallest teeth next to it, our fingers and so on.

Scientists also claim that top athletes tend to have a beautiful physical appearance. Their argument is backed up by this ancient Roman theory. The smaller the difference in size of our left hand side limbs as oppose to our right hand limbs, the more attractive you are and hence the more athletic you are. But they conclude that this is just an assumption based on human ability of balance. The ears play a role in giving us balance when we walk, run , cycle etc.

They are probably right to assume that as well, just look at Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney and Ronaldinho to name a few. These are top football players and they are probably regarded as 'unattractive' to some modeling agencies.

Rugby players are probably excluded since their faces and body are subject to force and pressure. Some of them are rather good looking, eg Gavin Henson, Daniel Carter, Dani Cipriani and so on.

Scientists developed the theory and enhanced it further to make a scaled mask that is now used by plastic surgeons in their tasks of 'repairing' facial 'deformity'.
That 'mask' is not really a mask, it is only a set of lines and triangles drawn over a person's face. The better your face fit the lines, the more attractive you are.
Tom Cruise and Elizabeth Hurley are those few people who are blessed with attractive features as shown on the show.

But the highlight of the show was the phrase "Beauty isn't a passport to success, it is just a Visa which expires". Which is why plastic surgeons are becoming more in demand these days. Humans can never be satisfied with their 'visa'. They will always find ways to extend them as long as they can. Some people in this country are also subject to this perhaps.

2 comments:

Izrin said...

omg..we r nowhere near beauty..haha..

Ali said...

beauty is subjective...hehe

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