CAPSTONE COURSE IN THE HUMANITIES

ARCHIMEDIAN AND PLATONIC FORMS

Course Description Archimedes argued that the sphere provides the foundation for five of the Platonic solids and thirteen of the Archimedian solids. These eighteen shapes are the building blocks of three-dimensional space. It is also central to certain traditions in art, architecture, chemistry, and atomic physics. The harmonic proportion of form is the basis for the geometry of design, the geometry of art and the archetypes of nature and science. The course begins with an introduction to these forms and demonstrates how they are evidenced in architecture, art, music, biology, and science. Each graduate student will design a research project that is concomitant with his own academic discipline and divulge how these archetypical forms employed within that certain aspects of that discipline.

Texts: Harmonic Proportion and form in nature, art and architecture. By Samuel Colman. 2003. Dover. ISBN: 0-486-42873-7 Platonic & Archimedean Solids: The Geometry of Space. Daud Sutton. 2002. Walker and Company. ISBN: 0-8027-1386-6 A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science. Michael S. Schneider. 1994. HarperPerennial. ISBN: 0-06-09-016939-7 The Geometry of Art and Life. Matila Ghyka. 1977. Dover. ISBN: 0-486-23542-4 The Curves of Life: An Account of Spiral Formations and Their Application to Growth in Nature, to Science and to Art. Theodore Andrea Cook. 1979. Dover Publication. ISBN 0-486-23701-X Geometry and the Visual Arts. Dan Pedoe 1976. Dover Publications. ISBN: 0-486-24458-X Matrix of Creation: Sacred Geometry in the Realm of the Planets. Richard Heath. 2002. Inner Traditions. ISBN: 0-89281-194-3 The Golden Ration: The Story of Phi, The world's Most Astonishing Number. Mario Livio. 2002. Broadway Books. ISBN: 0-7679-0816-3 Geometry of Design: Studies in Proportion and Composition. Kimberly Elam. 2001. Princeton Architectural Press.