A fascinating exploration of the pentagon and its role in various
cultures
The pentagon and its close cousin, the pentagram, have inspired
individuals for the last two and half millennia, from mathematicians and
philosophers to artists and naturalists. Despite the pentagon's
wide-ranging history, no single book has explored the important role of
this shape in various cultures, until now. Richly illustrated,
Pentagons and Pentagrams offers a sweeping view of the five-sided
polygon, revealing its intriguing geometric properties and its essential
influence on a variety of fields.
Traversing time, Eli Maor narrates vivid stories, both celebrated and
unknown, about the pentagon and pentagram. He discusses the early
Pythagoreans, who ascribed to the pentagon mythical attributes, adopted
it as their emblem, and figured out its construction with a straightedge
and compass. Maor looks at how a San Diego housewife uncovered four
previously unknown types of pentagonal tilings, and how in 1982 a
scientist's discovery of fivefold symmetries in certain alloys caused an
uproar in crystallography and led to a Nobel Prize. Maor also discusses
the pentagon's impact on many buildings, from medieval fortresses to the
Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Eugen Jost's superb illustrations provide
sumptuous visual context, and the book's puzzles and mazes offer fun
challenges for readers, with solutions given in an appendix.
