The Cube Made Interesting
The Cube Made Interesting is a geometry book aimed at high school mathematics students, on the geometry of the cube. It was originally written in Polish by Aniela Ehrenfeucht (née Miklaszewska, 1905–2000), titled Ciekawy Sześcian [the interesting cube], and published by Polish Scientific Publishers PWN in 1960. Wacław Zawadowski translated it into English, and the translation was published in 1964 by the Pergamon Press and Macmillan Inc., in their "Popular Lectures in Mathematics" series.[1][2]
Topics
The book begins with
An unusual feature of the book is its heavy illustration with red-blue anaglyphs;[1][2][3][4] provided with the book are red-blue glasses allowing readers to see these images as three-dimensional shapes.[5]
Audience and reception
This book is based on talks given by Ehrenfeucht to students and teachers,[2] and is aimed at a secondary-school audience.[3][4] Reviewer A. A. Kosinski writes that it "would contribute profitably to the development of the geometric imagination of a student", and Martyn Cundy writes that "the claim of the title is certainly justified".
However, H. S. M. Coxeter notes that some of the terminology has become incorrect or nonstandard in the translation, suggesting that copyediting by someone more familiar with English mathematical terminology would have helped avoid these problems.[1] Cundy complains that the material on Prince Rupert's cube does not provide its optimal solution, and suggests that the color printing and inclusion of 3D viewing glasses made it unnecessarily expensive.[5]
References
- ^ MR 0170242
- ^
- ^ Zbl 0093.33505
- ^ MR 0145385
- ^ JSTOR 3612197