Explain this
Ruler and Compass
How the publisher describes it:
“Andrew Sutton guides you through the once treasured principles of ruler and compass constructions, used for centuries by master craftsmen.”
Review by Peter Hall
In brief:
I'm sure the constructions revealed could easily be explained to a class and many students will love the wide range of skills they could pick up fairly easily
“This book is just delightful”
This is another delight from Wooden Books. A beautiful little book (slightly smaller than A5) printed on recycled paper that looks charming and interesting. The pages are cream with a dark brown ink — giving it a style that it missing in most modern books.
To do justice to this book I need to find several days to immerse myself in the joys and delights of rulers and compass constructions — as it is I shall have to restrain myself to odd moments — but being such a nice hand-held tome this would be easy to slip into a bag or a large pocket and read in odd moments. I’m sure the real delight is reading it with a rule and compass to hand so that instead of just admiring the illustrations the reader is able to duplicate them and enjoy the experience of creating the diagrams.
The book opens with the simplicity of triangles, perpendiculars and parallels but then quickly heads off into the realms of far more interesting constructions. Swiftly the reader is able to draw a dodecagon and enjoy inscribing circles. In addition to constructing such shapes the author also reveals the skill of using constructions to illustrate means, divide rectangles and produce spirals.
Later in the book the author shows how to do some constructions with a compass alone, and also with a rusty compass (i.e. just using one circle) which is a nice bonus I’d not seen before.
In short, this book is just delightful. I’m sure the constructions revealed could easily be explained to a class and many students will love the wide range of skills they could pick up fairly easily. For those students who love drawing this might be much more interesting than the limited range of constructions we usually share.
I cannot recommend this book strongly enough...
Peter Hall • AST Mathematics, Imberhorne School, East Grinstead
Ruler and Compass
Practical Geometric Constructions
Andrew Sutton
Woodenbooks.com
ISBN 978-1-904263-661
£5.99
