Following a useful introduction to define terms used, there are examples of polyhedra in art and architecture (Plate 7 shows a photograph of a small stellated dodecahedron in the marble mosaic floor of St. Mark's Basilica, Venice). Other chapters are on 'Rules and Regularity', 'Surfaces, Solids and Spheres'. 'Symmetry, Shape and Structure' is probably the chapter most useful to a crystallographer, it includes a 'decision tree' which could be useful to students struggling to determine the symmetry type of a given crystal or polyhedron. Unfortunately, as he explains in the preface, some topics are omitted, including duality and a study of space filling polyhedra.
This is a handsome book printed on good quality paper; each chapter begins with an elegant full page illustration. There are many line diagrams in the text, such as this one to the left. The colour plates are between pages 210 and 211, but it took me some time to find them because they are not listed in the contents. There are 23 pages of bibliography, a 5 page name index and a 9 page subject index. The bibliography is divided into sections, with references grouped by chapter, but there are no reference numbers within the chapter itself showing you exactly where a particular reference is relevant.
I expected a book of this kind to be accompanied by software, or a least a list of World Wide Web sites for those interested in polyhedra. The diagrams must have been generated by computer since the book was prepared by the author using LaTeX and printed from the camera ready copy he supplied, but I found no details of how the diagrams were made. The use of computers is discussed in the chapter 'Counting, Colouring and Computing' where they are used as tools to solve the problem of how to colour a polyhedron with a minimum number of colours.
You could buy this book for its wealth of general information on polyhedra. I found it very readable, but as there is little discussion of crystallographic applications, I think it too expensive to recommend to students. A cheaper paperback edition might be very good value, especially if accompanied by an optional CD-ROM with images from the book and software to allow readers to make their own polyhedral diagrams.
Kate Crennell
He also has an amusing
dodecahedral
calendar as a postscript file which you cut out and construct as a
decoration for your desk, and a list of
links to other
polyhedral sites.
A paperback edition is to be published by the CUP on 22 July 1999
ISBN 0-521-66405-5 price (UK) �22.95
further details can be found on the author's web site at:
http://www.liv.ac.uk/~spmr02/book/details.html
This is a revised edition which attempts to correct errors reported
in the hardback edition.
Click here to return to BCA homepage