This lavishly illustrated volume provides a strikingly visual approach to geometric shapes and transformations in 2- ,3- , and 4-dimensional space. Invoking Plato's polygons, Kepler's polyhedra, and Fuller's polytopes, the author presents, by means of hundreds of beautiful illustrations (100 of them in full color), many complex designs which may be found in nature or which may be produced by computer graphics programs. This self-contained work reveals how polygons, polyhedra, and polytopes are effective tools or hieroglyphs with which we may investigate and describe the macro, medio, and micro worlds or the multi-dimensional world without any telescope or microscope and without requiring guidance from others. Forewards by Buckminster Fuller and H. S. W. Coxeter.
"This collection of essays by artists and mathematicians continues the discussion of the connections between art and mathematics begun in the widely read first volume of The Visual Mind in 1993."--BOOK JACKET.
The first edition of Connections was chosen by the National Association of Publishers (USA) as the best book in ?Mathematics, Chemistry, and Astronomy ? Professional and Reference? in 1991. It has been a comprehensive reference in design science, bringing together in a single volume material from the areas of proportion in architecture and design, tilings and patterns, polyhedra, and symmetry. The book presents both theory and practice and has more than 750 illustrations. It is suitable for research in a variety of fields and as an aid to teaching a course in the mathematics of design. It has been influential in stimulating the burgeoning interest in the relationship between mathematics and design. In the second edition there are five new sections, supplementary, as well as a new preface describing the advances in design science since the publication of the first edition.
Zi Jin got up. When Zi Jin got married, she agreed that her biological mother, Aunt Wu, would be the mother in charge. However, something happened to her son before the wedding, so she would be late. The genius can come, and Zi Jin estimates that it will come within a few days. With Zhou's mother here, the old lady's backup force for Zi Jin has also arrived. Zi Jin feels much more at ease thinking of this.
The first edition of Connections was chosen by the National Association of Publishers (USA) as the best book in “Mathematics, Chemistry, and Astronomy — Professional and Reference” in 1991. It has been a comprehensive reference in design science, bringing together in a single volume material from the areas of proportion in architecture and design, tilings and patterns, polyhedra, and symmetry. The book presents both theory and practice and has more than 750 illustrations. It is suitable for research in a variety of fields and as an aid to teaching a course in the mathematics of design. It has been influential in stimulating the burgeoning interest in the relationship between mathematics and design. In the second edition there are five new sections, supplementary, as well as a new preface describing the advances in design science since the publication of the first edition.
In this insightful book, which is a revisionist math history as well as a revisionist art history, Tony Robbin, well known for his innovative computer visualizations of hyperspace, investigates different models of the fourth dimension and how these are applied in art and physics. Robbin explores the distinction between the slicing, or Flatland, model and the projection, or shadow, model. He compares the history of these two models and their uses and misuses in popular discussions. Robbin breaks new ground with his original argument that Picasso used the projection model to invent cubism, and that Minkowski had four-dimensional projective geometry in mind when he structured special relativity. The discussion is brought to the present with an exposition of the projection model in the most creative ideas about space in contemporary mathematics such as twisters, quasicrystals, and quantum topology. Robbin clarifies these esoteric concepts with understandable drawings and diagrams. Robbin proposes that the powerful role of projective geometry in the development of current mathematical ideas has been long overlooked and that our attachment to the slicing model is essentially a conceptual block that hinders progress in understanding contemporary models of spacetime. He offers a fascinating review of how projective ideas are the source of some of today’s most exciting developments in art, math, physics, and computer visualization.
"There is perhaps no better way to prepare for the scientific breakthroughs of tomorrow than to learn the language of geometry." -Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe The word "geometry" brings to mind an array of mathematical images: circles, triangles, the Pythagorean Theorem. Yet geometry is so much more than shapes and numbers; indeed, it governs much of our lives-from architecture and microchips to car design, animated movies, the molecules of food, even our own body chemistry. And as Siobhan Roberts elegantly conveys in The King of Infinite Space, there can be no better guide to the majesty of geometry than Donald Coxeter, perhaps the greatest geometer of the twentieth century. Many of the greatest names in intellectual history-Pythagoras, Plato, Archimedes, Euclid- were geometers, and their creativity and achievements illuminate those of Coxeter, revealing geometry to be a living, ever-evolving endeavor, an intellectual adventure that has always been a building block of civilization. Coxeter's special contributions-his famed Coxeter groups and Coxeter diagrams-have been called by other mathematicians "tools as essential as numbers themselves," but his greatest achievement was to almost single-handedly preserve the tradition of classical geometry when it was under attack in a mathematical era that valued all things austere and rational. Coxeter also inspired many outside the field of mathematics. Artist M. C. Escher credited Coxeter with triggering his legendary Circle Limit patterns, while futurist/inventor Buckminster Fuller acknowledged that his famed geodesic dome owed much to Coxeter's vision. The King of Infinite Space is an elegant portal into the fascinating, arcane world of geometry.
An illuminating biography of one of the greatest geometers of the twentieth century Driven by a profound love of shapes and symmetries, Donald Coxeter (1907–2003) preserved the tradition of classical geometry when it was under attack by influential mathematicians who promoted a more algebraic and austere approach. His essential contributions include the famed Coxeter groups and Coxeter diagrams, tools developed through his deep understanding of mathematical symmetry. The Man Who Saved Geometry tells the story of Coxeter’s life and work, placing him alongside history’s greatest geometers, from Pythagoras and Plato to Archimedes and Euclid—and it reveals how Coxeter’s boundless creativity reflects the adventurous, ever-evolving nature of geometry itself. With an incisive, touching foreword by Douglas R. Hofstadter, The Man Who Saved Geometry is an unforgettable portrait of a visionary mathematician.
This volume is a collection of essays on complex symmetries. It is curated, emphasizing the analysis of the symmetries, not the various phenomena that display those symmetries themselves. With this, the volume provides insight to nonspecialist readers into how individual simple symmetries constitute complex symmetry. The authors and the topics cover many different disciplines in various sciences and arts. Simple symmetries, such as reflection, rotation, translation, similitude, and a few other simple manifestations of the phenomenon, are all around, and we are aware of them in our everyday lives. However, there are myriads of complex symmetries (composed of a bulk of simple symmetries) as well. For example, the well-known helix represents the combination of translational and rotational symmetry. Nature produces a great variety of such complex symmetries. So do the arts. The contributions in this volume analyse selected examples (not limited to geometric symmetries). These include physical symmetries, functional (meaning not morphological) symmetries, such as symmetries in the construction of the genetic code, symmetries in human perception (e.g., in geometry education as well as in constructing physical theories), symmetries in fractal structures and structural morphology, including quasicrystal and fullerene structures in stable bindings and their applications in crystallography and architectural design, as well as color symmetries in the arts. The volume is rounded of with beautiful illustrations and presents a fascinating panorama of this interdisciplinary topic.
