Nonstandard Notebook
Mathematically Ruled Pages for Unruly Thoughts
9780226830902
9780226830919
Nonstandard Notebook
Mathematically Ruled Pages for Unruly Thoughts
A revolutionary notebook that challenges us to play outside (and with) the lines.
A standard notebook displays page after page of horizontal lines. But what if we break the pattern? What if the ruled pages grew unruly? In this Nonstandard Notebook, lines twist, fragment, curve, and crisscross in beautiful formations. Each sheet is a distinctive work of imagination, asking us to draw, doodle, and journal in the same spirit.
Page after page, as we journey from lines to parabolas to waves, deep questions arise—about form, art, and mathematics. How do we harness the infinite? Why do patterns permeate nature? What are the limitations and possibilities of human vision? The Nonstandard Notebook explores these questions and more through its provocative and inspirational images, each displayed with the mathematics that generated it. We see how straight lines can form fractal crenelations; how circles can disrupt and unify; and how waves can form complex landscapes (or even famous faces). Created by mathematicians, educators, and math popularizers Tim Chartier and Amy Langville, and with a foreword from Ben Orlin (bestselling author of Math with Bad Drawings), the Nonstandard Notebook shows that rules—both the rules of mathematics and the rules of a notebook—do not mark the end of creativity, but the beginning.
A standard notebook displays page after page of horizontal lines. But what if we break the pattern? What if the ruled pages grew unruly? In this Nonstandard Notebook, lines twist, fragment, curve, and crisscross in beautiful formations. Each sheet is a distinctive work of imagination, asking us to draw, doodle, and journal in the same spirit.
Page after page, as we journey from lines to parabolas to waves, deep questions arise—about form, art, and mathematics. How do we harness the infinite? Why do patterns permeate nature? What are the limitations and possibilities of human vision? The Nonstandard Notebook explores these questions and more through its provocative and inspirational images, each displayed with the mathematics that generated it. We see how straight lines can form fractal crenelations; how circles can disrupt and unify; and how waves can form complex landscapes (or even famous faces). Created by mathematicians, educators, and math popularizers Tim Chartier and Amy Langville, and with a foreword from Ben Orlin (bestselling author of Math with Bad Drawings), the Nonstandard Notebook shows that rules—both the rules of mathematics and the rules of a notebook—do not mark the end of creativity, but the beginning.
Reviews
Table of Contents
Foreword
Introduction
1 Lines: the wisps of structure
2 Parabolas: residues of motion
3 Polygons: the molecules of shape
4 Circles: the ripples of distance
5 Waves: the rhythms of nature
6 Limits: tales of striving
7 Rotation: dizzying symmetry
8 Scaling: the rhyme of large and small
9 Polar: the world of the compass rose
10 Pathways: parametric footprints
11 Randomness: serendipity through chaos
12 Third Dimension: the paradox of paper
Closing Lines
Introduction
1 Lines: the wisps of structure
2 Parabolas: residues of motion
3 Polygons: the molecules of shape
4 Circles: the ripples of distance
5 Waves: the rhythms of nature
6 Limits: tales of striving
7 Rotation: dizzying symmetry
8 Scaling: the rhyme of large and small
9 Polar: the world of the compass rose
10 Pathways: parametric footprints
11 Randomness: serendipity through chaos
12 Third Dimension: the paradox of paper
Closing Lines