Making Mathematics with Needlework
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Cover of CRC Press reprint | |
| Editor | |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | A K Peters |
Publication date | 2008 |
Making Mathematics with Needlework: Ten Papers and Ten Projects is an edited volume on mathematics and fiber arts. It was edited by Sarah-Marie Belcastro and Carolyn Yackel, and published in 2008 by A K Peters, based on a meeting held in 2005 in Atlanta by the American Mathematical Society.[1][2]
The book includes ten different mathematical fiber arts projects, by eight contributors.[3] An introduction provides a history of the connections between mathematics, mathematics education, and the fiber arts.[2] Each of its ten project chapters is illustrated by many color photographs and diagrams,[4] and is organized into four sections: an overview of the project, a section on the mathematics connected to it, a section of ideas for using the project as a teaching activity, and directions for constructing the project.[3] Although there are some connections between topics, they can be read independently of each other, in any order.[4] The thesis of the book is that directed exercises in fiber arts construction can help teach both mathematical visualization and concepts from three-dimensional geometry.[1]
The book uses knitting, crochet, sewing, and cross-stitch, but deliberately avoids weaving as a topic already well-covered in mathematical fiber arts publications.[5] Projects in the book include a quilt in the form of a Möbius strip, a "bidirectional hat" connected to the theory of Diophantine equations, a shawl with a fractal design, a knitted torus connecting to discrete approximations of curvature, a sampler demonstrating different forms of symmetry in wallpaper group, "algebraic socks" with connections to modular arithmetic and the Klein four-group, a one-sided purse sewn together following a description by Lewis Carroll, a demonstration of braid groups on a cable-knit pillow, an embroidered graph drawing of an Eulerian graph, and topological pants.[1][2][6]
Beyond belcastro and Yackel, the contributors to the book include Susan Goldstine, Joshua Holden, Lana Holden, Mary D. Shepherd, Amy F. Szczepański, and D. Jacob Wildstrom.[7]
.jpg)
