Princeton University Press
Pentagons and Pentagrams: An Illustrated History
Key Metrics
- Eli Maor
- Princeton University Press
- Hardcover
- 9780691201122
- -
- -
- Mathematics > Geometry - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
A fascinating exploration of the pentagon and its role throughout culture
The pentagon and its close cousin, the pentagram, have inspired individuals for the last two and half millennia, from mathematicians and philosophers to artists and naturalists. Despite the pentagon's wide-ranging history, no single book has explored the important role of this shape throughout culture, until now. Richly illustrated, Pentagons and Pentagrams offers a sweeping view of the five-sided polygon, revealing its intriguing geometric properties and its essential influence on a variety of fields.
Traversing time, Eli Maor narrates vivid stories, celebrated and unknown, about the pentagon and pentagram. He discusses the early Pythagoreans, who ascribed to the pentagon mythical attributes, adopted it as their emblem, and figured out its construction with a straightedge and compass. Maor looks at how a San Diego housewife uncovered four previously unknown types of pentagonal tilings and how in 1982, a scientist's discovery of fivefold symmetries in certain alloys caused an uproar in crystallography and led to the awarding of the Nobel Prize. Maor also discusses the pentagon's impact on a multitude of buildings, from medieval fortresses to the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Eugen Jost's superb illustrations provide sumptuous visual context, and the book's puzzles and mazes offer fun challenges for readers, with solutions given in the appendix.
Author Bio
Eli Maor is a former professor of the history of mathematics at Loyola University Chicago. His books include the internationally acclaimed To Infinity and Beyond, e: The Story of a Number, The Pythagorean Theorem: A 4,000-Year History, and Music by the Numbers, all published by Princeton University Press.
Eli Maor received his PhD at at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
Source: Princeton University Press and Loyola University
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