Mathematical Models

HM Cundy and AP Rollett

Published by The Clarendon Press, 1961

About this Item

Ah yes, Mathematical Models ? because before computers made everything invisible and suspiciously smooth, people had to understand mathematics by actually building the thing. H. M. Cundy and A. P. Rollett?s Mathematical Models is a wonderfully serious 1961 Clarendon Press production devoted to the noble art of making abstract ideas behave themselves in three dimensions. Curves, surfaces, polyhedra, symmetry, topology ? all those things that sound alarming on a blackboard become, in this book, objects you can imagine cutting, folding, assembling, and quietly being defeated by on a wet afternoon. This is mathematics with sleeves rolled up. Not merely ?solve for x?, but ?construct the wretched shape and see what it does.? It belongs to that admirable older tradition in which education assumed the reader had patience, a ruler, some glue, and a willingness to be humbled by geometry. The result is oddly charming: part textbook, part craft manual, part intellectual obstacle course. It is the sort of book that makes mathematics feel less like a set of punishments and more like a cabinet of strange, elegant machines. This Clarendon Press edition is in Fine condition, as sold by Crappy Old Books. A particularly smart copy for collectors, teachers, mathematicians, model-makers, and anyone who believes the proper response to an equation is to build it and stare at it accusingly. A beautiful old-school maths book: exact, elegant, hands-on, and faintly dangerous near scissors.

Seller Inventory # 6244

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Mathematical Models
• Publisher: The Clarendon Press
• Publication Date: 1961
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: Fine