Machu Picchu and Putucusi, Golden Rectangle

Successive Golden Rectangles dividing a Golden Rectangle into squares (Machu Picchu and Putucusi).

Machu Picchu. Built in the 1460s and abandoned for three centuries after the Spanish conquest, Machu Picchu, or “Old Peak” in the Quechua language, was rediscovered by U.S. archeologist Hiram Bingham in 1911. Machu Picchu is wonderful and incomparable, not only for its unique architecture. The natural beauty is astounding.

Putucusi, Quechua for “Happy Mountain”, is a round-shaped mountain located on the opposite side (northeast) of the Urubamba (Vilcanota) River to Machu Picchu in the Cusco department of Peru. Reaching approximately 2,560 meters (≈ 8,500 feet) above sea level at its peak, the mountain offers epic views of Machu Picchu and the surrounding Urubamba River Valley.

Putucusi, Machu Picchu (“Old Peak”) and Huayna Picchu (“Young Peak”) are considered apus, or holy mountains, by the local Quechua people.

Machu Picchu, is among the New Seven Wonders of the World, a recent poll with 100 million votes.

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.