Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
The topic of circle packing was born of the computer age but takes its inspiration and themes from core areas of classical mathematics. A circle packing is a configuration of circles having a specified pattern of tangencies, as introduced by William Thurston in 1985. This book lays out their study, from first definitions to latest theory, computations, and applications. The topic can be enjoyed for the visual appeal of the packing images - over 200 in the book - and the elegance of circle geometry, for the clean line of theory, for the deep connections to classical topics, or for the emerging applications. Circle packing has an experimental and visual character which is unique in pure mathematics, and the book exploits that to carry the reader from the very beginnings to links with complex analysis and Riemann surfaces. There are intriguing, often very accessible, open problems throughout the book and seven appendices on subtopics of independent interest. This book lays the foundation for a topic with wide appeal and a bright future.Synopsis
This book introduces a new mathematical topic known as 'circle packing', taking the reader from first definitions to late-breaking results.
Editorials
From the Publisher
"Stephenson is one of a new breed of pure mathematicians, growing in number, who love to combine experiment with theory. This means he has computer code to carry out these packings and investigate their properties. And the book is interlaced with experiments—some successful, some not, some which worked one day but not the next when pushed further. His immense enthusiasm for this subject comes through on every page."American Scientist
"Ken Stephenson has produced this textbook an effective and enjoyable tour of both the basic theory of circle parking and its use in deriving an intricate theory of discrete analytic functions. All this from the humble circle! I expect Introduction to Circle Parking: the Theory of Discrete Analytic Functions to be the source for student and researcher for many years to come."
Bulletin of the AMS