Sunflower Mathematics

A sunflower head grows one seed at a time, turning the same angle before each new one. At 137.508° — the golden angle — every seed drops into the largest gap the others left behind, and the head fills with no wasted space and no seams. Nudge the dial by a tenth of a degree and the packing tears open into spokes.

137.508°
of a turn0.381966
off golden0.000°
nudge

Readout

1500seeds
—packing
—arms, each way
measuring

Both numbers are measured off the dots on screen, not looked up. Packing is the widest hole in the head against the tightest possible spacing — 100% is the best any pile of round seeds can do. Arms counts the two families of curves your eye picks out — spirals when the packing works, spokes when it doesn't.

Head

Try an angle

The golden angle is 360° ÷ φ², the turn that no simple fraction can approximate. Every other choice here is a near miss, and the head shows it.