The golden ratio of gait harmony: repetitive proportions of repetitive gait phases

In nature, many physical and biological systems have structures showing harmonic properties. Some of them were found related to the irrational number φ known as the golden ratio that has important symmetric and harmonic properties. In this study, the spatiotemporal gait parameters of 25 healthy subjects were analyzed using a stereophotogrammetric system with 25 retroreflective markers located on their skin. The proportions of gait phases were compared with φ, the value of which is about 1.6180. The ratio between the entire gait cycle and stance phase resulted in 1.620 ± 0.058, that between stance and the swing phase was 1.629 ± 0.173, and that between swing and the double support phase was 1.684 ± 0.357. All these ratios did not differ significantly from each other (F = 0.870, P = 0.422, repeated measure analysis of variance) or from φ (P = 0.670, 0.820, 0.422, resp., t-tests). The repetitive gait phases of physiological walking were found in turn in repetitive proportions with each other, revealing an intrinsic harmonic structure. Harmony could be the key for facilitating the control of repetitive walking. Harmony is a powerful unifying factor between seemingly disparate fields of nature, including human gait.