The Mathematics of Juggling

The Mathematics of Juggling
by Burkard Polster

The Mathematics of Juggling
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Book Summary Information

Author: Burkard Polster
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-10-31
ISBN: 0387955135
Number of pages: 248
Publisher: Springer
Accessories:

Book Reviews of The Mathematics of Juggling

Book Review: Not for most jugglers
Summary: 1 Stars

I am a mathematical dunce. I have a better than average IQ, I passed high school algebra, I have been juggling for 35 years, and I even came up with diagrams on my own to remember and devise patterns. I thought I would enjoy this book, and I imagine I would if it were at all comprehensible to me. Though the book is hyped as "useful," "accessible" and "entertaining," buyers should be warned that Polster's book is about math and is written entirely in the language of math. There is no effort to bridge the gap between a practical understanding of juggling logic and his numeric abstractions. He writes in plain English prose until 3/4 of the way down page 8, and by the bottom of that page he has ditched you and disappeared into a world of opaque notation that might as well have been written by G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell. If page after page of greek letters, academic jargon and abstract equations is easy reading for you, get this book. If you don't already speak higher math, Polster isn't going to teach you how.

For a book that does what Polster does not, find Laws of Form by G. Spencer Brown.

Summary of The Mathematics of Juggling

As a juggler the author likes to finish his performances with a stunt that combines props and techniques from a variety of juggling disciplines. Imagine him idling on a giraffe unicycle, while balancing a spinning basketball on a mouth stick, and toss-juggling a sword, a toilet plunger, and a rubber chicken. As a mathematician he is also interested in the treasure trove of beautiful mathematics used to model the different activities in a juggler's repertoire. In this book he provides an intellectually stimulating collection of mostly self-contained mathematical essays that introduce the reader to many elegant results and techniques from a wide range of mathematical disciplines such as combinatorics, graph theory, knot theory, mechanics, differential equations, control theory, and robotics. "The Mathematics of Juggling" is the first comprehensive account summarizing and expanding the results in the literature on juggling tricks and skills, as well as the mathematics behind these tricks and skills. Anybody who is not put off by the word "mathematics" in the title of this book should have a good time reading it.

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