Geometrical Objects

This volume explores the mathematical character of architectural practice in diverse pre- and early modern contexts. It takes an explicitly interdisciplinary approach, which unites scholarship in early modern architecture with recent work in the history of science, in particular, on the role of practice in the “scientific revolution”. As a contribution to architectural history, the volume contextualizes design and construction in terms of contemporary mathematical knowledge, attendant forms of mathematical practice, and relevant social distinctions between the mathematical professions. As a contribution to the history of science, the volume presents a series of micro-historical studies that highlight issues of process, materiality, and knowledge production in specific, situated, practical contexts. Our approach sees the designer’s studio, the stone-yard, the drawing floor, and construction site not merely as places where the architectural object takes shape, but where mathematical knowledge itself is deployed, exchanged, and amplified among various participants in the building process.

A useful guide for researchers and professionals, graduate and senior undergraduate students, this book provides an in-depth look at applied and geometrical probability with an emphasis on statistical distributions. A meticulous treatment of geometrical probability, kept at a level to appeal to a wider audience including applied researchers who will find the book to be both functional and practical with the large number of problems chosen from different disciplines A few topics such as packing and covering problems that have a vast literature are introduced here at a peripheral level for the purpose of familiarizing readers who are new to the area of research.

This book aims to present some of the latest research in the didactics of space and geometry, deepen some theoretical questions and open up new reflections for discourse. Its focus is as much on the approach of geometry itself and its link with the structuring of space as it is on the practices within the classroom, the dissemination of resources, the use of different artefacts and the training of teachers in this field. We study how spatial knowledge, graphical knowledge and geometric knowledge are taken into account and articulated in the teaching of space and geometry in compulsory schools, teaching resources (programs and textbooks) and current teacher training. We question how the semiotic dimension (language, gestures and signs) of geometric activity can be taken into account, and we identify the role of artefacts (digital or tangible) in the teaching and learning of geometry. This book brings together some fifteen contributions from Frenchspeaking researchers from different countries (France, Switzerland and Canada).

This book on symmetric geometric patterns of Islamic art has educational, aesthetic, cultural and practical purposes. Its central purpose is to bring to the attention of the world in general, and the people of Islamic culture in particular, the potential of the art for providing a unified experience of science and art in the context of mathematical education. Unlike other books on Islamic patterns, this book emphasizes the educational potential in the context of modern physics, chemistry, crystallography and computer graphics. The symmetric structure of about 250 Islamic patterns is presented. Simple, but detailed original, unpublished algorithms suitable for modern computer graphics are given for the construction of two-dimensional periodic patterns. Endorsed by prominent experts from the fields of Physics to Systems and Cybernetics, this book promises to be a must-read, not only for specialised mathematicians, but also for students, graphic artists, illustrators, computer hobbyists, as well as the lay reader keen to explore Islamic art.

This volume contains papers based on some of the talks given at the NSF-CBMS conference on ``The Geometrical Study of Differential Equations'' held at Howard University (Washington, DC). The collected papers present important recent developments in this area, including the treatment of nontransversal group actions in the theory of group invariant solutions of PDEs, a method for obtaining discrete symmetries of differential equations, the establishment of a group-invariant version of the variational complex based on a general moving frame construction, the introduction of a new variational complex for the calculus of difference equations and an original structural investigation of Lie-Backlund transformations. The book opens with a modern and illuminating overview of Lie's line-sphere correspondence and concludes with several interesting open problems arising from symmetry analysis of PDEs. It offers a rich source of inspiration for new or established researchers in the field. This book can serve nicely as a companion volume to a forthcoming book written by the principle speaker at the conference, Professor Niky Kamran, to be published in the AMS series, CBMS Regional Conference Series in Mathematics.

All of the sciences―physical, biological, and social―have a need for quantitative measurement. This influential series, Foundations of Measurement, established the formal foundations for measurement, justifying the assignment of numbers to objects in terms of their structural correspondence. Volume I introduces the distinct mathematical results that serve to formulate numerical representations of qualitative structures. Volume II extends the subject in the direction of geometrical, threshold, and probabilistic representations, and Volume III examines representation as expressed in axiomatization and invariance.

Focusing on the medieval reception of Book Zeta of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Volume One of this work offers an unprecedented and philosophically oriented study of medieval ontology against the background of the current metaphysical debate on the nature of material objects. Volume Two makes available to scholars one of the culminating points in the medieval reception of Aristotle’s metaphysical thought by presenting the first critical edition of Book VII of Paul of Venice’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics (1420-1424).”

This book discusses the learning and teaching of geometry, with a special focus on kindergarten and primary education. It examines important new trends and developments in research and practice, and emphasizes theoretical, empirical and developmental issues. Further, it discusses various topics, including curriculum studies and implementation, spatial abilities and geometric reasoning, as well as the psychological roots of geometrical thinking and teacher preparation in geometry education. It considers these issues from historical, epistemological, cognitive semiotic and educational points of view in the context of students' difficulties and the design of teaching and curricula.