Reviews

SCIENTIFIC AMERlCAN, December 1994

Reviewed by Phillip Morrison

”A globe-trotting couple, structural chemists from Budapest, have assembled this fine display for general readers from ages 12 to 120. It shows that world of symmetries the authors first entered through the austere portals of electron diffraction.

First of all, it is a book of pictures in black and white. Half the book considers and displays in plenty dance masks, choral pairs of gloves and artfully-dissected apples (“The Royal Cut”, the French call it), pinwheels and flowers, six-fold snowflakes and the Eyeful Tower (a four-fold blossom as seen from straight above), balloon clusters, even molecules. The latter half goes beyond mirrors and rotations, all those moves that leave one point fixed, to look at grander repeats, in fences and friezes, in spiral and helix, honeycombs and tiled walls, finally in diamonds, Secures, and even insultingly novel alloy so full of neatly-arrayed pentagons. (Of course they also show the Pentagon itself.)

Art and nature draw similar attention here, mostly at the scale that meets the eye. The authors’ own special interest in the-inside matter is here background, more strongly seen in their other half-dozen more technical books on the topic. As a field guide to easily-grasped and beautiful exemplars of this powerful idea, the book is a storehouse hard to beat.

A middle few pages between point groups and space groups touch on the of this world, not the merely fuzzy symmetry of left hand and right, but black for white, negative and positive, concave and convex, even angels and devils. Here’s room for a whole new book!”

Other reviews:

”This exploration ranges from the simple mirror image, images reflected and rotated in planes and the mathematical descriptions for these and other models. The added extra is the enormous number of images that accompany the simple text . . . ” -Maggie McDonald, New Scientist

”This 221-page, profusely illustrated compendium is a pleasure to browse through yet fully repays the reader who stops to dive in more deeply.” –Quantum

”A unique look at life and creation.” –Booklist

”This book gently leads the non-specialist into the wonderful world of symmetry . . . ” -H.S.M. Coxeter, Professor of Mathematics, University of Toronto, Canada

”By the variety and excellence of the photographs, as well as the text, brief but to the point, the authors have produced a marvelous book revealing the aspects of symmetry in all its varied forms.” -Herbert Hauptman, Ph.D. Chemistry, Nobel Laureate, Medical Foundation of Buffalo, Inc.

”This book is the first step in understanding our world in a scientific and materialist way.” -Alan L. Mackay, D.Sc.,F.R.S., Birkbeck College, London, U.K.

”From one category to another, from image to image as from one dot to the next, our visual memory moves in often unconnected segments. In their beautiful book the Hargittais trace the unifying line that connects the dots, and the reader experiences the thrill of discovery and deep reverence for beauty without which the book itself would not have been possible.” -Gabriela Radulesco, Scipress

”In this richly illustrated book, the Hargittais bring us a captivating, compelling view of the patterns in the familiar and the obscure.” -Roald Hoffman, Chemistry Nobel Laureate Cornell University