Celestial Tapestry
The Warp and Weft of Art and Mathematics
Nicholas Mee
Also available as:
$43.95 AUD
- ISBN:
- 9780198851950
- Published:
- 28 Aug 2020
- Availability:
- 5
Celestial Tapestry places mathematics within a vibrant cultural and historical context, weaving together threads that involve many intriguing characters: the seriously injured soldier who laid the foundations for fractals and computer art; the Scottish necromancer, dedicatee of the most important medieval mathematics book; the mathematician imprisoned for bigamy whose books had a huge influence on twentieth century art; the pioneer clockmaker who suffered from leprosy and never recovered from a lightning strike on his bedchamber; the Victorian housewife who amazed mathematicians with her intuition for higher-dimensional space.
Contents
0: A Magic Carpet Ride
The Fabric of Space, Time and Matter
1: Into the Labyrinth
2: Earth, Air, Fire and Water
3: The Elements
4: The Wheel of Fortune
5: The End of the World is Nigh!
6: Interstellar Overdrive
Weaving Numbers and Patterns
7: Burning Down the House
8: Rampant Rabbits
9: There's Magic in the Air
10: Doctor Illuminatus
11: The Book of Changes
Drawing out the Golden Threads
12: The Vanishing Point
13: The Golden Number
14: Optical Skullduggery
15: The Perils of Parallels!
Higher Space and a Deeper Reality
16: The Laws of Thought
17: Free Love in Many Dimensions
18: Into the Fourth Dimension
19: The Bride Stripped Bare
20: Aunt Alice in Wonderland
Wandering Round the Knot Garden
21: Let's Do the Twist
22: The Gordian Knot
23: All for One and One for All
Casting the Celestial Net
24: Painting By Numbers
25: The Flat Earth Society
26: Mapping the Cosmos
Answers to Puzzles
Further Reading
Quotation Sources
Illustration Credits
Index
Nicholas Mee , Director, Virtual Image Publishing Ltd and Quantum Wave Publishing Ltd
Nicholas Mee studied theoretical physics and mathematics at the University of Cambridge, where he gained his PhD in particle physics. He has authored numerous multimedia titles including The Code Book on CD-ROM with Simon Singh and Connections in Space with John Barrow, Martin Kemp and Richard Bright. He has played key roles in several significant science and art projects including the European SCIENAR project and the 2012 Henry Moore and Stringed Surfaces exhibition at the Royal Society. He is author of the award-winning popular science books Higgs Force: Cosmic Symmetry Shattered and Gravity: Cracking the Cosmic Code, as well as The Cosmic Mystery Tour, published by Oxford University Press in 2019.