Collects instructions drawn from the pages of String Figure Magazine explaining how to create such string "sculptures" as "Twinkling star," "Polar Bear," "Erupting volcano," and "Andromeda galaxy"

Diagrams and text illustrate the steps involved in creating over one hundred string figures while providing information on their origin and cultural background

Provides directions, illustrated with photographs, for making many different string figures-- from the fairly simple Jacob's Ladder to more complex Mt. Fuji-- along with information about their history and meaning.

Play 40 terrific games with only one piece of string!

Strings Attachedis the story of a brilliant, but ferocious music teacher who came to be known as Mr K. A Ukrainian immigrant who survived an abusive childhood to become a noted resident and teacher, Mr K used music as a means of escape. The authors, who spent their childhoods in the late 60s and 70s, rehearsing and playing together as young musicians, bring the extraordinary character of Mr K to life - from his days as a forced Nazi labourer; to his home life as a husband to an invalid wife; to his heart-breaking search to find his missing daughter; to the terrifying challenges he hurtled from behind the music stand.

Anyone can master the fundamentals of game design - no technological expertise is necessary. The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses shows that the same basic principles of psychology that work for board games, card games and athletic games also are the keys to making top-quality videogames. Good game design happens when you view your game from many different perspectives, or lenses. While touring through the unusual territory that is game design, this book gives the reader one hundred of these lenses - one hundred sets of insightful questions to ask yourself that will help make your game better. These lenses are gathered from fields as diverse as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, writing, puzzle design, and anthropology. Anyone who reads this book will be inspired to become a better game designer - and will understand how to do it.

A Fields medalist recounts his lifelong effort to uncover the geometric shape—the Calabi-Yau manifold—that may store the hidden dimensions of our universe. Harvard geometer Shing-Tung Yau has provided a mathematical foundation for string theory, offered new insights into black holes, and mathematically demonstrated the stability of our universe. In this autobiography, Yau reflects on his improbable journey to becoming one of the world’s most distinguished mathematicians. Beginning with an impoverished childhood in China and Hong Kong, Yau takes readers through his doctoral studies at Berkeley during the height of the Vietnam War protests, his Fields Medal–winning proof of the Calabi conjecture, his return to China, and his pioneering work in geometric analysis. This new branch of geometry, which Yau built up with his friends and colleagues, has paved the way for solutions to several important and previously intransigent problems. With complicated ideas explained for a broad audience, this book offers not only insights into the life of an eminent mathematician, but also an accessible way to understand advanced and highly abstract concepts in mathematics and theoretical physics. “The remarkable story of one of the world’s most accomplished mathematicians . . . Yau’s personal journey—from escaping China as a youngster, leading a gang outside Hong Kong, becoming captivated by mathematics, to making breakthroughs that thrust him on the world stage—inspires us all with humankind’s irrepressible spirit of discovery.” —Brian Greene, New York Times–bestselling author of The Elegant Universe “An unexpectedly intimate look into a highly accomplished man, his colleagues and friends, the development of a new field of geometric analysis, and a glimpse into a truly uncommon mind.” —The Boston Globe “Engaging, eminently readable. . . . For those with a taste for elegant and largely jargon-free explanations of mathematics, The Shape of a Life promises hours of rewarding reading.” —American Scientist