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Nonstandard Notebook: Mathematically Ruled Pages for Unruly Thoughts
A revolutionary notebook that challenges us to play outside (and with) the lines.
A standard notebook displays page after page of horizontal lines. But what if we break the pattern? What if the ruled pages grew unruly? In this Nonstandard Notebook, lines twist, fragment, curve, and crisscross in beautiful formations. Each sheet is a distinctive work of imagination, asking us to draw, doodle, and journal in the same spirit.
Page after page, as we journey from lines to parabolas to waves, deep questions arise—about form, art, and mathematics. How do we harness the infinite? Why do patterns permeate nature? What are the limitations and possibilities of human vision? Nonstandard Notebook explores these questions and more through its provocative and inspirational images, each displayed with the mathematics that generated it. We see how straight lines can form fractal crenellations, how circles can disrupt and unify, and how waves and scaling can form complex landscapes (or even famous faces). Created by mathematicians, educators, and math popularizers Tim Chartier and Amy Langville, and with a foreword from Ben Orlin (bestselling author of Math with Bad Drawings), Nonstandard Notebook shows that rules—both the rules of mathematics and the rules of a notebook—do not mark the end of creativity, but the beginning.
A standard notebook displays page after page of horizontal lines. But what if we break the pattern? What if the ruled pages grew unruly? In this Nonstandard Notebook, lines twist, fragment, curve, and crisscross in beautiful formations. Each sheet is a distinctive work of imagination, asking us to draw, doodle, and journal in the same spirit.
Page after page, as we journey from lines to parabolas to waves, deep questions arise—about form, art, and mathematics. How do we harness the infinite? Why do patterns permeate nature? What are the limitations and possibilities of human vision? Nonstandard Notebook explores these questions and more through its provocative and inspirational images, each displayed with the mathematics that generated it. We see how straight lines can form fractal crenellations, how circles can disrupt and unify, and how waves and scaling can form complex landscapes (or even famous faces). Created by mathematicians, educators, and math popularizers Tim Chartier and Amy Langville, and with a foreword from Ben Orlin (bestselling author of Math with Bad Drawings), Nonstandard Notebook shows that rules—both the rules of mathematics and the rules of a notebook—do not mark the end of creativity, but the beginning.
204 pages, Paperback
Published October 10, 2024
21 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 2, 2024
Since I already wrote the foreword, I guess this review is the fore-foreword.
Anyway, when I saw Tim and Amy's book, I was captivated. And I didn't quite understand what they'd done. Three possibilities occurred to me. Was this...
(A) a backdoor introduction to mathematics, illustrating key topics, themes, and techniques in a playful, visual format?
(B) just a gallery of beautiful images, with the math subordinated to the artistry?
or
(C) a genuine notebook, intended not for a passive reader but an active writer or doodler?
If you are looking for one of those three things in isolation, you can probably find a more suitable object. But if you're intrigued by the possibility of braiding all three together -- if you want to see a proof by construction that such disparate purposes can converge in a single lovely form -- then do yourself a nonstandard favor, and check out this decidedly nonstandard creation.
Anyway, when I saw Tim and Amy's book, I was captivated. And I didn't quite understand what they'd done. Three possibilities occurred to me. Was this...
(A) a backdoor introduction to mathematics, illustrating key topics, themes, and techniques in a playful, visual format?
(B) just a gallery of beautiful images, with the math subordinated to the artistry?
or
(C) a genuine notebook, intended not for a passive reader but an active writer or doodler?
If you are looking for one of those three things in isolation, you can probably find a more suitable object. But if you're intrigued by the possibility of braiding all three together -- if you want to see a proof by construction that such disparate purposes can converge in a single lovely form -- then do yourself a nonstandard favor, and check out this decidedly nonstandard creation.
December 10, 2024
I would have liked more details. This book feels lite.
August 7, 2025
love this
This is amazing! Love the different pages of patterns and equations that go with them! Spectacular presentation of mathematics and design!
This is amazing! Love the different pages of patterns and equations that go with them! Spectacular presentation of mathematics and design!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews