Beyond Measure: A Guided Tour through Nature, Myth, and Number by Jay Kappraff

A collection of essays that stand on their own but are also loosely connected. Part I documents how numbers and geometry arise in several cultural contexts and in nature: the ancient musical scale, proportion in architecture, ancient geometry, megalithic stone circles, the hidden pavements of the Laurentian library, the shapes of the Hebrew letters, and the shapes of biological forms. The focus is on how certain numbers, such as the golden and silver means, present themselves within these systems. Part II shows how many of the same numbers and number sequences are related to the modern mathematical study of numbers, dynamical systems, chaos and fractals.

Reviews:
…a rare ability to convey discoveries and ideas of fellow mathematicians and scientists to the interested general public. – Istvan Hargittai, Budapest Technical University

Beyond Measure is bound to increase your appreciation of the role of mathematics in our world. – Library of Science, 2003

Jay Kappraff ranges far and wide in an exhilarating, challenging, and innovative book sure to stimulate reader's sense of wonder" – Clifford A Pickover, T J Watson Research Centre, IBM

This book should be in the hands of many non-mathematicians and mathematicians. – Zentralblatt MATH

This pleasant book should be in the hands of many non-mathematicians and is of interest also for mathematicians. – Zentralblatt MATH

This unusual book contains many interesting observations about the real world and relates these observations to one another… – H S M Coxeter, University of Toronto