Category Archives: mathematics

kissing spheres

Er, whatever you say there, Swen. Glad to know someone is still watching.

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Dandelin spheres

Hop David illustrates and animates some theorems about conics.

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life in n-space

Ever since reading Greg Egan’s novel Diaspora (1998), part of which takes place in a five-dimensional universe, I’ve occasionally tried to imagine aspects of life in higher spaces (which is tricky, as I lack the knack of visualizing in such … Continue reading

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Computer Graphics and Geometric Ornamental Design

Craig Kaplan writes: Whenever possible, one’s thesis should be write-only. Nevertheless, I understand if once in a while a visitor to this page may choose to read what I’ve written.

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spheres subtracted

Hyperbolic geometry, provoked by “Not Knot”. The shape at the end of that show is an ideal rhombic dodecahedron (‘ideal’ means some of its vertices are at infinity) seen from inside; here it is seen from outside, in the Poincaré … Continue reading

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first they mock . .

Well well! Robin Hanson’s concept of idea futures is discussed today (though not by that name) in the New York Times: A Market Approach to Politics

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that symmetry guy

The eminent geometer HSM (Donald) Coxeter of Toronto died a few days ago, aged 96 years. His book Regular Polytopes (1963) sits on my reference shelf. For you non-mathematical types, it was Coxeter who sent MC Escher an article on … Continue reading

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