Take any real number and call it x. Then plug it into the equation f(x) = 1 + 1/x and keep doing it many times in a row, plugging the result back into the equation.
At some point you will see that you arrive at a value that will become stable and not change anymore. And that value will be… φ, the golden ratio!
But this equation also has another answer, -1/φ. If you plug that value into the equation, it will be the same, too. The real magic happens once you have rounded the -1/φ down (or up), i.e. once what you plug into the equation is no longer exactly -1/φ. What happens is that, if you keep going, you will eventually reach… φ as your answer!
Simon saw this interesting fact in a video by 3Blue1Brown and then came up with a proof as to why it happens.
Simon also sketched his proof in GeoGebra: https://www.geogebra.org/classic/zxmqdspb
Geeks out of the box 