Islamic Design: A Mathematical Approach

Brian Wichmann is the author of a CD/booklet published by World Scientific on geometric patterns. He obtained a DPhil (Oxon) in Mathematics, then had a career in software engineering research at NPL before starting a retirement project of collecting all known classical Islamic geometric patterns. The collection is at tilingsearch.org.David Wade is the author of a number of books about Islamic Art and related topics. He is also responsible for the web site patterninislamicart.com which has over 4,000 photographs of patterns in Islamic Art. This is a major source of photographs for the book.

“I am delighted that a book like this, which offers substantial contributions to the literature … has been published. It provides inspiration for others, including undergraduate mathematics students, who are seeking interdisciplinary topics for independent research.” (Joel Haack, MAA Reviews, August 18, 2019)

• Foreword.- I Cultural Context.- 1 A History.- 2 The Scientific Contribution.- 3 Religious Dimension.- 4 The Evolution of Style.- 5 Materials and Mediums.- 6 Countries and Regions.- II Mathematical Analysis.- 7 Introduction.- 8 A Worked Example.- 9 An Octagonal Set.- 10 Octagonal Tiles with a Large Star.- 11 Lines and Edges.- 12 Decagonal Patterns.- 13 What Is Correct?.- 14 6-fold Delights.- 15 Two Level Patterns.- 16 Two Mamluk Masterpieces.- 17 Conclusions.- A The Symmetry of a Tiling.- B Key Dates.- C Glossary.- D Copyright.