The Seduction of Curves

"This is what a book should be: startling, bold, and beautiful, idiosyncratic and yet universal. Only Allan McRobie could have written it. But all of us can enjoy it. He shows us how to look at ourselves, our bodies, and our world in a new way. After just a few minutes you'll feel like you're seeing everything for the first time. Brilliantly conceived, poetically written, and utterly original, The Seduction of Curves is a sinuous delight."--Steven Strogatz, author of The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity

"McRobie, a mathematician with a deep knowledge of the visual arts and the human body's curves, has written a startlingly original book. The Seduction of Curves is a probing exploration of the parallels between nature and the constructed world--and the most striking illustrated mathematics book I've ever seen."--Michael Harris, author of Mathematics without Apologies: Portrait of a Problematic Vocation

"This is a mathematics book, a science book, and an art book--a seductive and richly illustrated work of cultural synthesis, in which the visible and hidden folds and surfaces of our bodies are described by modern geometry and connected to engineering, optics, and other applications."--Michael Berry, University of Bristol