The Seduction of Curves - Allan McRobie *****

Having recently been somewhat underwhelmed by a science/art crossover book, I was expecting to be equally unimpressed by The Seduction of Curves, which promises to cover 'the lines of beauty that connect mathematics, art and the nude' - but the result is, in truth, stunning (in a good way).

Using both examples from art and impressive original photography by Helena Weightman, Allan McRobie introduces us to the significant shapes that form the 'alphabet' of catastrophe theory. This sounds like something dealing with sudden and drastic failures of systems - and certainly it can be involved in them. But at its heart, it's about mathematical functions where a small change in a parameter makes a sudden and distinctive shift in the output - from example when a curve suddenly takes a totally different direction (as it often does on the contours of the human body).

What makes this very different from the other title I mentioned is that this is not just a coffee table book of pretty pictures with captions to explain them. It is a proper book, with text worth reading, illustrated by Weightman's subtle photographs (the cover is a good example of her approach) and by works of art. Just occasionally, the art perhaps dominates a little much (I'm thinking of the Moiré fringes section), but mostly the balance is such that it should appeal both to art lovers and those with a real interest in the mathematical basis.

It's such an original and impressive book, I hate to bring up a negative, but I think it would have benefited from having an introductory chapter giving us more basic background on catastrophe theory before plunging into the curves and the art/science crossover in the text. Without that, it felt that some of the mathematical side was presented without enough context.

The nudes are tasteful and are not the only photographic subjects by any means - there's an impressive section, for example, on catastrophe optics and another on gravitational lensing which, though not as visually effective as some of the rest of the book, gives a feel for a wider field of application of catastrophe theory.

The whole science/art crossover thing usually seems a feeble attempt to make science more approachable to arty types who would run a mile at the mention of a theory or a formula. (C. P. Snow's two cultures are alive and well.) When someone does an art installation based at CERN, say, it has the feel of a community project which seemed a good idea at the time, but does nothing to make the science more approachable. This is the first example I've ever seen of a book where it all comes together in a beautiful and cohesive whole.

Hardback:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

The Laws of Thought - Tom Griffiths *****

In giving us a history of attempts to explain our thinking abilities, Tom Griffiths demonstrates an excellent ability to pitch information just right for the informed general reader. We begin with Aristotelian logic and the way Boole and others transformed it into a kind of arithmetic before a first introduction of computing and theories of language. Griffiths covers a surprising amount of ground - we don't just get, for instance, the obvious figures of Turing, von Neumann and Shannon, but the interaction between the computing pioneers and those concerned with trying to understand the way we think - for example in the work of Jerome Bruner, of whom I confess I'd never heard. This would prove to be the case with a whole host of people who have made interesting contributions to the understanding of human thought processes. Sometimes their theories were contradictory - this isn't an easy field to successfully observe - but always they were interesting. But for me, at least, ...

The AI Paradox - Virginia Dignum ****

This is a really important book in the way that Virginia Dignum highlights various ways we can misunderstand AI and its abilities using a series of paradoxes. However, I need to say up front that I'm giving it four stars for the ideas: unfortunately the writing is not great. It reads more like a government report than anything vaguely readable - it really should have co-authored with a professional writer to make it accessible. Even so, I'm recommending it: like some government reports it's significant enough to make it necessary to wade through the bureaucrat speak. Why paradoxes? Dignum identifies two ways we can think about paradoxes (oddly I wrote about paradoxes recently , but with three definitions): a logical paradox such as 'this statement is false', or a paradoxical truth such as 'less is more' - the second of which seems a better to fit to the use here. We are then presented with eight paradoxes, each of which gives some insights into aspects of t...

Einstein's Fridge - Paul Sen ****

In Einstein's Fridge (interesting factoid: this is at least the third popular science book to be named after Einstein's not particularly exciting refrigerator), Paul Sen has taken on a scary challenge. As Jim Al-Khalili made clear in his excellent The World According to Physics , our physical understanding of reality rests on three pillars: relativity, quantum theory and thermodynamics. But there is no doubt that the third of these, the topic of Sen's book, is a hard sell. While it's true that these are the three pillars of physics, from the point of view of making interesting popular science, the first two might be considered pillars of gold and platinum, while the third is a pillar of salt. Relativity and quantum theory are very much of the twentieth century. They are exciting and sometimes downright weird and wonderful. Thermodynamics, by contrast, has a very Victorian feel and, well, is uninspiring. Luckily, though, thermodynamics is important enough, lying behind ...

Search This Blog