This question involves the sides of a right-angled triangle, the Golden
Ratio, and the arithmetic, geometric and harmonic means of two numbers.
Take any two numbers
and
, where
.
the arithmetic mean (AM) is
;
the geometric mean (GM) is
;
the harmonic mean (HM) is
and the arithmetic mean is always the largest.
Show that the AM, GM and HM of
and
can be the lengths of the sides
of a right-angles triangle if and only if
where
, the Golden Ratio.
[As a calculator can only give approximate answers, you cannot use a
calculator for this question.]