INTRODUCTION Mathematics is a world of eternal truths and abstract perfection. Exploring its transcendent beauty can be a spiritual experience. Snowflake Seashell Star is both a field guide for the mathematical adventurer and a therapeutic exercise book designed to bring insight and illumination through the meditative experience of colouring in. Not only are the images exquisitely pretty, but they unlock the secrets of an intellectual quest that has been under way for three thousand years. Mathematics is the search to understand the patterns of the universe in their purest form. No mathematical knowledge is required or assumed. But even in your selection of which colours to use, you will be engaging and enhancing your mathematical intuition. The book has two sections, Colouring and Creating: the first offers completed images for colouring in, while the second gives you simple rules to follow so that you can create your own images. And if you are curious about the designs, there are brief explanations at the back. Escape to Numberland. Relax. Focus. And enjoy the view.
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Published in Great Britain in 2015 by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE www.canongate.tv 1 Copyright © Alex Bellos 2015 All illustrations © Edmund Harriss except those cited in the page of picture credits The moral right of the author has been asserted British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library ISBN 9781782117889 Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc.
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