Download Now Quadrivium: Number Geometry Music Heaven Imagined By Wooden Books Issued As Paperback

much fun, so useful for homeschooling, Me love. I came across this attractive volume in the Adler Planetarium's bookshop in Chicago, According to Wikipedia, from the time of Plato through the Middle Ages the quadrivium was a grouping of four subjects or artsarithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomythat formed a second curricular stage following preparatory work in the trivium, which consisted of grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
The present volume departs somewhat from this definition, It comprises six "books" by various authors, dealing respectively with "sacred number," which includes newage numerology and several errors of fact e, g. "five petals form a flower" "sacred geometry" which includes some interesting constructions Platonic and Archimedean solids the harmonograph athcentury mathematical toy that draws curved figures much like a spirograph the elements of music and "A Little Book of Coincidence in the Solar System" discussing some numerical ratios but largely ignoring the fact that planetary orbits are ellipses, not circles.
Despite the volume's title, there was nothing about cosmology in the modern sense, A very mixed bag, containing some good stuff, but I'm not tempted to buy other books in the series, A little dry, leftbrained and technical for me, There is a great breadth of information here but sometimes it is summed up a little too tersely for my taste, I'll admit that there are portions that I read without consciously absorbing so either it is working on a subconscious level it took me at leastyears till now and I still haven't quite finished it, or I'm simply not able to understand parts of it due to its technicality or the need for constant revision.


I love the presentation, it has great illustrations I can't say for sure how they have been sourced, though they often compliment the text nicely and of course, the subjects on offer combine for a wonderful compendium to branch everyday science and mathematics into some more esoteric, metaphysical, and spiritual realms.


Sadly it may be just that a teaser collection to ignite interest in deeper enquiries which necessitate seeking beyond these pages, leaving myself at least a little unsatisfied.
It never really hooked my interest on more than a superficial level,

For sure this is more a coffee table book in terms of detail and quality rather than something to really dig into over a month.
You can easily pick it up, read a couple of pages, and put it down again,

For these reasons it is good, but not great, This book follows the classic liberal arts subjects of number, shape, cosmos, and music, and it shows how they all inform each other, It's beautiful, with text on the verso and image on the recto, however, because each spread is a new subject, the text was sometimes too abbreviated.
It gives a good overview, but doesn't go in depth enough on anything, It was a great introduction, and I'm interested in learning more, Can I give this more thanoh my goodness did I relish in this book, There was a whole hell of a lot I did not understand, but I am more than ready, willing and able to delve into more of this author's work.
Bring it on! This could be a source text for a Dan Brown novel, full of dubious "ancient and sacred" connections, There is a lot of interesting content about how math and ratios create beauty in architecture and music that I hadn't learned about before.
On the other hand, music and math theory are two areas that generally make my brain freeze over in confusion and the writing style here does not elucidate them.
I was both fascinated and frustrated by this book, I found much of it interesting, but each topic went from simple to complex quickly, and I needed to read it more slowly to absorb more.
The book is has written explanations on the leftside page and illustrations on the right, Often, the illustrations would've been easier to make out if they'd been printed on larger paper: sometimes the captions were too small for me to read even with reading glasses on.
But if the point was to pique my curiosity about the Quadrivium, it succeeded: I'd love to understand this better, Superficial books for superficial times, How to be "deep" without taking the depth, The book touches on multiple ideas and notions mixing mystical elements with science and philosophy but does not treat any of them seriously, More or less like you would be surfing on the internet for cool stuff related to music and astrology, It works great for people who want to sound cool when they talk about their passion for music and pseudomysticism, For anybody interested of the real information this book is touching on I would recommend reading Plato, Rodney Collin and P, D. Ouspensky.
Mystics treat planets as celestial living bodies, but from there and talking about Venus as "she" and planets "kissing" it is a long way.
Sometimes the language used seams borrowed from the popular "healthy smoothy" youtube channels, All in all, better have a look in it at the store then decide if you need it on your shelf, Also it seams to have a great marketing, for every real review posted they have somebody writing astar review to compensate, Just check it for yourself and see if is worth buying it, Fascinating. Shows an extraordinary and intriguing beauty and order in the universe, Why, for instance, do musical harmonic intervals show up in planetary orbits Or why the number of leaves on many species of growing plants can be predicted by one simple sequence of numbers The universe doesn't appear to be so random.
Recommended for artists who don't get science and scientists who don't get art, Changed fromafter rereading. I still feel like some of the topics require a lot of research it is more of a tease, spurring you into looking up more information in places unless you are already an expert.


Original: Interesting book, which is really four separate books, Some sections where I am strong like Geometry and Numbers felt like there was not enough information, others where I am clueless especially music I felt lost.
Probably just me but felt like in some sections I needed way more detail and in others way more explanation, Still, very interesting! Curious person Then I would suggest reading this book, I mean seriously, who the hell wouldn't want to learn about Epigrams, Phyllotaxis, or Li Symmetries, I really like it as a reference book, However, many of the concepts are addressed too briefly one page per and are often described in a way that makes them sound more complicated than they are i.
e. when they first address 'squaring the circle' on the page 'Elevenses',

I did buy it because, as I said in the beginning, it acts as quick reference book, Just understand that you will have to do some additional research/digging on your own, It acts more as an outline or guide,
Really, I'd probably give this more of a,stars.

Wooden Books has some great, simple books like this that give you the main idea of things without bogging you down too terribly much.
Kind of like all those books you see for sale on the tables at Books A Million,

I don't have a strong background in much of anything discussed here, so it doesn't get too terribly complex for somebody who isn't in the know, like myself.
I think, to be fair, I read this companies books too quickly no chapter is over two pages and end up confusing myself, or just overloading my brain with things like music theory to the point it all gets mushed together.


So, the lower rating is probably partially my fault, These would be a good dip into subjects before you invest time in a longer study, I liked the packaging that was the first thing that caught my eyes, I also liked the images in it, But, there is not much information offered, If a chapter picks your interest, you will have to research t somewhere else, on your own, since this book doesn't offer references, For this I rated it a,stars. Almost all the answers can be found in this book, They just need someone to synthesise the ideas and see the overall picture, the unifying force that permeates all four of these disciplines,/stars. Fascinating book. Astronomy section was the weakest which was a shame, The music section was the best, A book to pick up and read a section or two rather than reading straight through,

I thought I had received a classical education, Then I found this book, . . Fascinating book on the Quadrivium, I learned a lot from it, At times the book went beyond my ability to understand it particularly in the geometry and music sections, but it was accessible for the most part.
The biggest thing I gained from this, however, was not specific knowledge about the Quadrivium, but a better grasp on the larger point of the Quadrivium and how the Quadrivium is meant to be viewed or: rather, how the Quadrivium is to reshape our own views and feelings.


At the end of the day, it's more of a "here's a bunch of cool facts about the Quadrivium" book than anything else.
But boy are the facts cool, And boy does it do a good job of using the facts to reveal a mindset, and not just present facts for facts' sake.


Rating:.Stars Good. As much as I'd love to, I couldn't quite give this bookstars, The first few chapters are beautifully written and illustrated but some of the later stuff is much more dry though equally as fascinating in some respects.
I'd need to give the chapters on music onward another read to truly appreciate it I think,

Still, it's overall an astounding book, highly recommend it to anyone with a general interest in philosophy, science, or music, An incredibly fun, well illustrated and densely packed read, Anyone will enjoy, but this isn't for the faint of heart there's a lot of information packed into these pages and sometimes you'll want to reread the same section or go back to a previous chapter to refresh your memory.


A wonderful look at the classical arts geometry, arithmetic, music and cosmology, Quadrivium connects dots and expounds on the math and beauty constantly swimming in our world's ether.
Among my collection of books sits “Quadrivium,” so far more of a curiosity than a tome I refer to with endearment, Like the two books on topology, this volume is something I approach with trepidation, the hope of totally understanding its content long since dashed.
Its like trying to understand a cloud hard to visualize or quantify, yet there, all the same, challenging me to understand much more than its function or existence.
And even that is tough sledding,

The easiest place to start is with a description of the form and format, The title is followed by a subtitle: “The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, and Cosmology,” which pretty much sums up the content.
Published by Walker amp Company, thepage book measures” wide by,” tall and.” thick.

“Quadrivium” is part of a series called “Wooden Books, ” Apparently, there are two other books in the series: “Trivium” covering Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric, and “Sciencia” Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Astronomy,

Judging by stiff nature of the Quads/”thick cover, it could very well be made of some wood product, But an online search reveals nothing about “Quads” construction, Notes opposite the title page do an admirable job of earthfriendly virtuesignaling with the statement that the paper used by Walker amp Company consists of “natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in wellmanaged forests,” and that “manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
” Thank goodness for the reassurance, I sure as hell wouldnt want to own a book culled from mismanaged forests,

The cover similar to the books standard font color is dark brown though the internal font for the body text is closer to sepia.
The title and subtitle embody a subtle glow, as if laseretched, the words surrounded by scores of arcane and geometrical symbols, thus lending the tome an eternal or mystical feel.


As for the internal contents, the choice of sepia is troublesome, While not difficult to read, the graphics tend to be washedout, at times, lessening their impact, But given the wealth of information presented, its a shortcoming well just have to live with, Maybe the color cut down on printing costs,

The contents are divided into six sections, each one

originally published at an earlier time the dates range from, and the collection itself released in.
Book I is “Sacred Number” Miranda Lundy Book II, “Sacred Geometry” Miranda Lundy Book III, “Platonic amp Archimedean Symbols” Daud Sutton Book IV, “Harmonograph” Anthony Ashton Book V, “The Elements of Music” Jason Martineau and Book VI, “A Little Book of Coincidence.
”

As for the books nature and intent, the editor states that it is three things: a rare treasure, immortal, and universal, The foreword informs us that in its original state, the Quadrivium was “first formulated and taught by Pythagoras as the Tetrakyts aroundBC,” and that it was “the first European schooling structure that honed education down to seven essential subjects.
”
As I read all of this, I am reminded of why Ive never gotten too far with the book in previous attempts: its a reference book, not exactly the kind of thing you curl up with for an evening of easy reading.
But it is what it is,

For the visuallyoriented learner, every section is accompanied by one or more illustrations, And the illustrations themselves are interesting, for they represent the old and the new, as well as approaching the respective topic from several different directions to aid in understanding not that every subject is readilyaccessible, despite visual aids.


To delve further into description of Quadriviums contents is futile, for its similar to giving an overview of a dictionary or encyclopedia for this is a reference book.
That being said, its one of the more fascinating examples of a reference book that there is, Where else will one fond a section on games, where the hopscotch diagram shows the starting square as “Earth,” and the final two destination areas as “Heaven,” just past “Hell” Or instructions for building your own harmonograph Or yet another attempt to explain the “circle of fifths,” a section of musical theory that continues to baffle me Then theres the “Little Book of Coincidence in the Solar System,” a compendium of galactic patterns and parallels that may challenge a readers beliefs about the Big Bang theory and evolution as much as it might support them.


As if all of this werent enough, the final section is a cornucopia of magic squares, early number systems, symbology incarnate in “Some Numbers of Things” and a “Select Glossary of Numbers,” ruler and compass constructions, scarylooking Platonic Solids formulas, equally intimidating square roots for harmonic constants and equations, and planetary tunings whatever the hell those are.


After Id owned the book for a few years, we moved to SoCal, One day I was visiting with Seth, a local transient who was surprisingly wellspoken and educated not to mention surprisingly wellversed in hygiene, having some secret knowledge of accessible bathing facilities his fellow hoboes were not privy to.
Yes, I said “privy,” so get over it, The fact that he was also a paranoid schizophrenic though a highfunctioning one didnt deter me from inviting him to lunch, one afternoon,

After we spent time over a meal, discussing everything from religion to rock music, it became apparent that he had some cognitive issues that hampered his ability to control his emotions.
Having repeatedly assured me that he loathed books a trait he extended to most humans he came in contact with his increasingly erratic behavior indicated to me that it was time for him to go.
As he headed out the door, I noticed that he had my copy of “Quadrivium” surreptitiously tucked under one arm, I hadnt seen him grab it, but now I asked for it back, He apologetically handed it over with an unconvincing “How did that get there” look on his face,

Ever since then, Ive thought of Seth every time I grab “Quadrivium,” for another go at it, If the tome is good enough for a brilliant, highfunctioning schizophrenic, it will always have a place on my bookshelf,
.