has been a few decades since my college math classes, but Daina Taimina managed to keep my interest, I may have to read parts of the book a few times to understand the concepts, but I'm already crocheting a hyperbolic plane to help me visualize.
The profuse illustrations in the book will assist also, I would have rated it higher if she gave specific pattern instructions to make some of the crazy awesome corals and hyperbolic planes in the book! I personally am not able to review this book.
If you want a full understanding of why, do go here:
sitelink youtube. com/watchvJZcUjY
which explains the great knitting/crochet divide, It is quite funny.
It will simply never bother me that I cant knit hyperbolas, Im sorry if this offends any crocheters, On second thoughts, no Im not,
Still, this book has interest for a few reasons, One is that it won this years Oddest Booktitle of the Year award ahead of:
Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter by David Crompton.
Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots, by Ronald C, Arkin.
The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, by Ellen Scherl and Marla Dubinsky,
Third place: Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich, by James A, Yannes, receivingof the vote,
Second place: What Kind of Bean is this Chihuahua by Tara JansenMeyer,of the vote,
First place: Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes, by Dr, Daina Taimina,of the vote,
Another is the unlikeliness of seeing a book of crochet patterns being brought out by a science and technology publisher and reviewed by science and maths journals.
You can see a few pictures from the book here: sitelink blogs. cnn. com/
Being a knitter, I cant say anything positive about this book, but in the interests of fairness, I will quote the eminent mathematician William Thurston, who said of it:
“These models have a fascination far beyond their visual appearance.
As illustrated in the book, there is actually negative curvature and hyperbolic geometry all around us, but people generally see it without seeing it, You will develop an entirely new understanding by actually following the simple instructions and crocheting! The models are deceptively interesting, Perhaps you will come up with your own variations and ideas, In any case, I hope this book gives you pause for thought and changes your way of thinking about mathematics, ”
Im sure it should, William, Im sure it should, but,
Sadly, no patterns but I got to see one of her hyperbolic planes at the Exploratorium, and it was very cool, Finally, a craft I can get behind,
This book gave me so many ideas for class, . . hyperbolic plane hats for every student and a little known Lewis Carroll play, and some easy ways to introduce topology, I can't wait to do projects, A great dipinto source for the noneuclidiens amongst us, who insist in working with wool, If you can get your hands on the hardback, its binding is far more robust, Math for crafters, and crafts for math lovers! A bit over my head, Very good and accessible introduction to collegelevel geometry, with some nice practical work, I want to crochet a hyperbolic plane! So, I ordered this book in the hopes it would help in that quest, as well as give some background and an increased understanding of the relevant mathematics.
Mission sortof accomplished. Yes, there are instructions for crocheting your own example, and yes there's a fair amount of history, but still this book was not quite what I was expecting.
The instructions are not written for the basicknowlege crocheter and are not set out as clearly as I am used to seeing in "project" books.
Turns out, this is not a project book, . . more a ramble of thoughts by the author, a mathematician who came into fiber arts fame through the back door, in a way, It shows. I think this book would have benefited greatly by having a coauthor, someone who came out of the fiber art instruction world and could have helped to include more novice friendly patterning and discussion.
I'm still going to try to make my own hyperbolic plane example, though, I'll let you know how it turns out, Another book of maths and crochet, This one is beautifully illustrated, but information about how to create the shapes is not provided, My husband bought this book for me at the MOMath in NYC, I've dipped into it all year at my bedside table,
There are plenty of photos, but since they are strange and rare, they are not always sharp and clear, The crochet sections themselves would have benefited from a glance from Lindsay Stevens or the Stitchstud, both wonderful technical editors for crochet patterns it's so much easier to read about crochet when it's written conventionally, even if British and American publishing do use different conventions.
However, the fun and wonder of this book is the way it smashes different disciplines together and shows how they benefit each other perhaps have always benefited each other.
Any math book that makes me reach for a crochet hook and some sketching yarn is a fun book in my opinion, Very interesting, but I didn't quite have the math skills to follow all of it, Winner of the Euler Book Prize Awarded by the Mathematical Association of America
With more thanfull color photographs, this nontraditional, tactile introduction to nonEuclidean geometries also covers early development of geometry and connections between geometry, art, nature, and sciences.
For the crafter or wouldbe crafter, there are detailed instructions for how to crochet various geometric models and how to use them in explorations,
From the Foreword by William Thurston:
"These models have a fascination far beyond their visual appearance, As illustrated in the book, there is actually negative curvature and hyperbolic geometry all around us, but people generally see it without seeing it, You will develop an entirely new understanding by actually following the simple instructions and crocheting! The models are deceptively interesting, Perhaps you will come up with your own variations and ideas, In any case, I hope this book gives you pause for thought and changes your way of thinking about mathematics, ".