Book

Blueprints: How Mathematics Shapes Creativity

The book cover for the book 'Blueprints' by Marcus du Sautoy.
Author
Marcus du Sautoy
Ages
16+

Blueprints takes us from the earliest stone circles to the modernist architecture of Le Corbusier, from Bach’s circular compositions to Radiohead’s disruptive soundscapes, and from Shakespeare’s hidden numerical clues to the Dada artists who embraced randomness. Instead of polar opposites we find a complementary relationship that spans a vast historical and geographic landscape.

Whether we are searching for meaning in an abstract painting or deciphering poetry, there are blueprints everywhere: prime numbers, symmetry, fractals and the weirder worlds of Hamiltonian cycles and hyperbolic geometry. Nature similarly exploits these structures to achieve the wonders of our universe.