A lavishly illustrated book that explores the language of curves that spans the human body, science, engineering, and art
Curves are seductive. These smooth, organic lines and surfaces-like those of the human body-appeal to us in an instinctive, visceral way that straight lines or the perfect shapes of classical geometry never could. In this large-format book, lavishly illustrated in color throughout, Allan McRobie takes the reader on an alluring exploration of the beautiful curves that shape our world-from our bodies to Salvador Dal- paintings and the space-time fabric of the universe itself.
The book focuses on seven curves-the fold, cusp, swallowtail, and butterfly, plus the hyperbolic, elliptical, and parabolic -umbilics--and describes the surprising origins of their taxonomy in the catastrophe theory of mathematician Ren-hom. In an accessible discussion illustrated with many photographs of the human nude, McRobie introduces these curves and then describes t
