Why on earth do cars have the same symmetry as dragonflies? Is there really a beautiful swirling pattern lurking in every dripping tap? What do insect eggs have in common with planets, and why? This book introduces the main principles of symmetry, and shows how symmetry can be found in almost every corner of science, nature and human culture.

Welsh Border architect David Wade has spent a lifetime gathering and organising the extraordinary families of surface patterns that nature throws up at every scale. In this book, illustrated by the author, we see branching patterns, animal spots, crack patterns and much, much more.

Deals with a little-known, short-lived, tradition of imaginative geometry that flourished in 16th century Germany, during the Northern Renaissance. The key figure in this movement was the goldsmith Wenzel Jamnitzer, whose graphic fantasies were an imaginative response to the newly rediscovered geometrical theories associated with such important figures as Pythagoras, Plato, Archimedes and Euclid - all part of the great revival of interest in Classical knowledge that characterised the Renaissance. 'Fantastic Geometry' provides a fairly comprehensive overview of the work of this group (with...