Mathematics and Culture V / Edition 1

by Michele Emmer

Overview

“I mean the third”cried the old man taking up the geometry book. “Well, young lady…”and he bent over his daughter. The princess gazed with terror into her father's keen eyes. He, on his part, got angry – pushed away his chair, dragged it back with a cl- ter – trying all the while to control himself; then again he would break out and storm, and wish the whole thing to the devil. As ill-luck would have it, to-day again his daughter answered at random and wrongly. “What an idiot!”he exclaimed, flinging down the book. The he rose, walked up and down, came back and stroked his daughter's hair, sat down again, and began his explanation once more. “It does not do, princess, it does not do”, he said, seeing her rise to leave him with VII the book in her hand. “Mathematics is a noble science, and I do not want you to be just like all the silly young ladies one meets. Persevere and you will learn to like the work, and the dullness will be nocked out of your brain. ” These words were spoken by Prince Andrei Bolkonskij, who was talking to Princess Marja Bolokonskaja, his daughter. They are two of the protagonists of Lev Tolstoy’s War and Peace, finished in 1869.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783540342779
Publisher:	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publication date:	01/19/2007
Edition description:	2007
Pages:	269
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

Michele Emmer is professor of Mathematics at the University of Rome "La Sapienza". As a filmaker he has realized several videos in the series "Art and math", including the one on M.C. Escher. He is editor of the series "Mathematics and Culture", Springer, and "The Visual Mind", MIT press; he is author of a book coauthored by D. Schattschneider "M.C. Escher's Legacy", Springer, and author of "Mathland: from Flatland to Hypersufaces", Birkhäuser. He is one of the editors of the VideoMath series by Springer.

Table of Contents

Homage to Coxeter.- H. M. S. Coxeter: A Brief Tribute.- Donald in Wonderland: The Many-Faceted Life of H. S. M. Coxeter.- Mathematics and Images.- Vision and Reality: Empiricism and Geometry.- Stars.- Mathematics and Venice.- An Arbritarily Small Epsilon: The Murrine of Venice and Murano.- Mathematics and Applications.- Mathematical Models for Meteorology.- The Mathematics in defense of the environment.- Mathematics and Architecture.- The Muqarnas Dome of the Hall of the Two Sisters in the Alhambra in Granada.- Mathland: From Topology to Virtual Architecture.- Architecture as Topological Transformation.- The New ‘Parco della Musica’ Auditorium: Anatomy of a Mega-Project.- Mathematics and Education.- Mathematics in ... : A Format for Mathematics Exhibits.- Learning Math Through the Arts.- Mathematics and Medicine.- Mathematics in the Blood.- HIV/AIDS, Agriculture and Food Security in Africa.- The Use of Mathematical Models for the Spread of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa.- Mathematics and Fashion.- Abstraction and Concreteness, Rigour and Elegance.- Mathematics and Art.- Towards Mathematical Aesthetics.- The Search for Stress-reducing Fractal Art: From Jackson Pollock to Frank Gehry.- Armando Pizzinato.- Armando Pizzinato.- Armando Pizzinato: A Twentieth-Century Adventure in Expression.- Mathematics and Theatre.- Bustric Recounts Bustric.

Editorial Reviews

From the reviews:

"The series collects together the proceedings of an annual conference on Mathematics and Culture held in Italy. … and they are well written. … There are … some very interesting pieces on some themes, and these will be of interest and use to those who wish to read about those particular themes. For this purpose, the books should be available at mathematical public libraries." (Gizem Karaali, MathDL, May, 2007)

From the Publisher