A book I can easily recommend to a beginning geometer or an experienced one.
Ruler & Compass, Practical Geometric Constructions, Andrew Sutton, Bloomsbury USA, NY; U.S. edition, 2009.
It's part of The Wooden Books Series. The fly leaf says "An Introduction to Geometry without Measurements".
Andrew Sutton is a high school math teacher in the UK.
His illustration at the bottom of his dedication page:
This is a small book, 6" x7" with 30 chapters, 58 pages. It includes sources, history, and many illustrations. It is dense, full of great details, but not intimidating.
He begins with an Introduction, Fundamentals, Perpendiculars, and Parallels.
These are his diagrams for his chapter (2 pages long) "Squares & Rhombuses from lines and circles".
I had fun comparing Constructions 34, 35, and 36 to Asher Benjamin and Owen Biddle's instructions. Both 34 and 35 constructions seem easier and faster than theirs.
These constructions are also variations of ones I've used.
At the end are an Appendix Polygon on Grid Construction and an appendix on Polygon Combinations.
This construction from page 56 is repeated and refined in 5 different ways.
The book refers to construction only as it is found in ancient Egypt and India. He does include diagrams by Serlio and Vignola, but seems to reference them through others, not from Serlio's and Vignola's own writings and diagrams.
I would like to hear his thoughts about Practical Geometry as it applies to construction.
No comments:
Post a Comment