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Crocheting adventures with hyperbolic planes

Hinke M. Osinga a
a
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

Online publication date: 19 February 2010

To cite this Article Osinga, Hinke M.(2010) 'Crocheting adventures with hyperbolic planes', Journal of Mathematics and

the Arts, 4: 1, 52 54

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/17513470903459526

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17513470903459526

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52

Book Reviews

to explore design solutions one would never have

been able to consider without such tools. Finally,
in Chapter 7, one works with data sets as inputs for the
parameters defined in programs constructing models.
Data sets might be images or environmental data such
as temperature, wind or the suns azimuth and elevation. For example, the intensity values of the pixels
in an image may specify the radii of each of a grid of
circles, or sun position information may be used to
define louvers on different facades of a building.
Architects and designers who finish Krawczyks
workbook will learn a powerful set of methods for
turning a simple application like AutoCAD into a
more powerful modelling tool. They will have explored
the concept of going beyond just building a model to
building a modeller that builds a model. That is, they
will explore designing a process of design, which is
what Professor Mitchell alludes to in his Foreword
with the term meta-design.
As an architect whose career depends on the
concepts of parametric and algorithmic design processes, and someone who works primarily with
AutoCAD and AutoLISP, I was enthusiastic to learn
that The Codewriting Workbook had been published.
I have used it to help introduce my colleagues and
students to these ways of working. As evidenced by
its presence in the annual Association for Computer
Aided Design (ACADIA), Smart Geometry and
Education and Research in Computer Aided
Architectural Design in Europe (eCAADe) conferences, parametric and algorithmic modelling are
gaining more and more attention and respect.
Although some may be worried that AutoCAD
coupled with AutoLISP is beginning to be seen as
outdated as newer tools such as Rhinoceros 3D,
Form-Z, 3ds Max and Maya emerge, I feel
AutoCAD is still prominent in the field, and that one
can easily learn AutoLISP. More importantly,
I see how the examples and process descriptions
found in this book can be extended to every designers
work.
Neil Katz
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
Chicago, IL
Neil.Katz@som.com
2010 Neil Katz

Crocheting adventures with hyperbolic planes, by Daina

Taimin a, Wellesley, MA, A.K. Peters Ltd., 2009, 148
pp., US$35.00 (hardcover), ISBN 978-1-56881-452-0.
My first impression of this book was one of sheer
delight in its excellent print quality. The overall design
DOI: 10.1080/17513470903459526

and layout make it a beautiful coffee-table book.

Nevertheless, this is a book about mathematics and
it is not made for browsing! In fact, I found this book
challenging to read, because I am not an expert in
hyperbolic geometry. Daina Taimin a takes us on
a journey through the history of hyperbolic geometry
by introducing the concepts in a visual and explorative
way. We are often asked to stop and think about what
we have just read. Furthermore, she tempts her readers
into making some of the beautiful crocheted hyperbolic
planes pictured in this book in order to experience
concepts hands-on. Therefore, this is not just
a mathematics book either. Daina Taimin as crocheted
pieces are works of art that have been photographed
in settings that emphasize their artistic beauty and
remind us that hyperbolic shapes are familiar
and occur naturally all around us. Each chapter
starts with a full-page photograph of her crocheted
art placed in a natural setting, to remind us that they
are not just tools for explaining mathematical concepts. This book also discusses how to crochet your
own version of these beautiful objects. Any hyperbolic
plane can be crocheted using the very basic crochet
stitch and by repeating the simple pattern of crochet n
stitches, increase one that is perfectly suited even for
someone who has never crocheted before.
This book tries to strike a balance between
providing a history of hyperbolic geometry, explaining
hyperbolic geometry to a broad audience and presenting the crocheted hyperbolic planes for tactile explorations, while keeping the books length down.
This is not an easy task and one necessarily has to
make choices that cannot please everyone. In my
opinion, Daina Taimin a has done a wonderful job.
Readers with a reasonably strong mathematical background will thoroughly enjoy this book; readers with
little knowledge of geometry may find it hard to
understand everything, but as Bill Thurston writes
in his foreword: I hope this book gives you pause
for thought and changes your way of thinking
about mathematics.
Daina Taimin a has written a very personal
introduction that summarizes what this book is about
and how it came to fruition. She draws attention to her
scholarly knowledge of the history of mathematics
and, specifically, her love for geometry. The idea of
visualizing the hyperbolic plane through crochet grew
out of her motivation and perseverance to explain
hyperbolic geometry to her students. While it is not
essential to see the mathematics, a visual image of a
mathematical concept often provides the key to
gaining a more thorough understanding. Concerning
the subject of hyperbolic geometry, it has taken
centuries to go beyond a mental image of a hyperbolic
plane, and we owe it to Daina Taimin a that we can

Downloaded By: [University of Richmond] At: 17:01 20 March 2010

Book Reviews
now not only see hyperbolic planes, but we can touch
them and explore them without fear of breaking them.
I would go as far as claiming that the tactile
experiences that crochet offers has caused a revolution
in the mathematical world. It is remarkable to read
that apparently the editor of The Mathematical
Intelligencer needed to be convinced of its merits
before publishing her paper co-authored with David
Henderson [2] about how to crochet a model of the
hyperbolic plane! Daina Taimin a and David
Henderson claimed that the idea of using crochet to
visualize mathematical concepts was not only worthy
of publication, but would be useful to others as well.
Indeed, a little more than three years later, I wrote a
paper with Bernd Krauskopf on crocheting the Lorenz
manifold [3]an important surface in dynamical
system theory that also has negative but not
constant negative curvatureand published it in
The Mathematical Intelligencer as well; the crochet
instructions for the Lorenz manifold are much more
involved, but the essential features are the same as for a
hyperbolic plane. Since almost five years have passed,
I hope that someone will be inspired by
Daina Taimin as book to introduce the use of crochet
to another area of mathematics!
The explanation of hyperbolic geometry begins
with the notion of positive and negative curvature.
The reader is eased into the subject of curvature via
planar curves and examples, such as oranges and
pears, of surfaces with different curvature properties.
This first chapter effectively sets the stage for the
rest of this book: several mathematical concepts
are explained both visually and in words, without
becoming too technical. However, sometimes the
explanations are quite technical and use jargon that
is not clearly explained. For example, let me quote a
short part from the section The Search for a Complete
Hyperbolic Surface: Unfortunately, d depends on the
local embedding and there is not a uniform bound for
the size of the largest piece of the hyperbolic plane
that can be isometrically embedded in 3-space. The
reader is left to guess what is meant by embedding, let
alone local embedding or isometrical embedding.
Personally, I found the overall style and level of
explanation quite good. If the reader is willing to stop
worrying about what an embedding is, (s)he can follow
most of the story at a reasonable level and still get a lot
out of this book.
Already towards the end of Chapter 1 the reader is
introduced to the crochet instructions for making his/
her own hyperbolic planes. The final section
Exponential Growth in this chapter gives a tacit
warning that crocheting a relatively large hyperbolic
planes takes quite some time. Nevertheless, the reader
should really put the book down now and start

53

crocheting. Chapter 2 uses the crocheted models of

hyperbolic planes as a tool to explain the concepts of
perpendicular and parallel straight lines in hyperbolic
geometry and how the sum of the angles of a triangle
actually depends on the size of the triangle in
hyperbolic geometry. The educational benefit from
the tactile experience is so powerful that evidently
every mathematician should learn how to crochet and
use it in geometry lectures. I thoroughly enjoyed this
chapter and think everybody will, even those who
remain worried about the definition of an embedding.
Chapter 3 offers a nice break from the introduction
to new materials in previous chapters and discusses
how human experiences in areas as different as art/
patterns, buildings/structures, navigation/stargazing
and motion/machines influenced the development of
geometry. Each strand is treated in turn by giving a
historical account of how observations, experience and
data collection led to a scientific theory. We all know
that mathematics originated from the applied point of
view, as a tool to solve real-world problems. This
chapter not only emphasizes the applied side of
geometry, but also shows the breadth and depth
of the subject in seemingly different areas of development. This material is quite stand-alone, and one
could easily start reading the book with this chapter,
because the concepts within each strand are actually
rather familiar. At the same time, having read
the previous chapters makes one anticipate things
more, and the links between the strands are more easily
recognized because one has a better understanding of
the difference between Euclidean (planar) and
non-Euclidean (spherical and hyperbolic) geometry.
Chapter 4 gives a brief history of crochet and
Chapter 5 discusses the history of non-Euclidean
geometry for each of the four strands introduced in
Chapter 3.
Chapter 6 is back on the familiar ground of using
crochet to understand and explain mathematical concepts that are introduced from a historical perspective.
The pseudo-sphere and a symmetric hyperbolic plane
are the topics of discussion for this chapter and serve as
examples of the scope and versatility of crocheted
models as a tool to understand geometry. Chapter 7
invites the reader to play with the crocheted models.
While initially it might appear that the shaping of a
crocheted hyperbolic plane is entertainment of an
artistic nature, the reader is quickly led back into the
realm of mathematics and a wide range of mathematical
toys pass by. It is not always easy to follow the
mathematical arguments here and a non-expert reader
could get lost in the jargon, but the essence of using
crochet to explore otherwise hard to visualize objects is
well maintained throughout this chapter. Chapter 8 is
entirely devoted to the helicoid and the catenoid and

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54

Book Reviews

great care is taken to explain what makes them special.

After crocheting a helicoid it becomes an easy exercise
to turn it into a catenoid, which brilliantly illustrates
that they are, in fact, isometric. In order to achieve this,
it is essential to know the gauge of your crochet stitch,
but precise instructions are given to show how to do the
measurements and calculations for the pattern.
The last chapter focuses on why people are still
interested in hyperbolic geometry and how it can be
used. The breadth of applications is enlightening; not
only do they come from all branches of science, but
there are also wonderful applications in music and art.
For example, Daina Taimin as crocheted hyperbolic
planes inspired industrial designer Radu Comsa to
design the Rasta Stool [1], which is apparently very
comfortable.
This book is unique in its combination of an
historical account of and the use of crochet as a tool
for understanding hyperbolic geometry; as a bonus, it
offers crocheted models that are genuine pieces of art.
I highly recommend this book, perhaps not only as a

beautiful coffee-table book with the subtle message

that mathematics is fun, but also because crochet is a
perfect tool for testing and exploring deep mathematical theories.

References
[1] R. Comsa, Rasta Stool, design by Radu Comsa. Available
at http://www.raducomsa.ro/furniture/full_rs.html (accessed
12 January 2010).
[2] D.W. Henderson and D. Taimin a, Crocheting
the hyperbolic plane, Math. Intelligencer 23 (2001),
pp. 1728.
[3] H.M. Osinga and B. Krauskopf, Crocheting the
Lorenz manifold, Math. Intelligencer 26 (2004), pp. 2537.

Hinke M. Osinga
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
E-mail: H.M. Osinga@bristol.ac.uk
2010 Hinke M. Osinga