The mathematics of juggling

Burkard Polster9780387955131, 0-387-95513-5

Learn to juggle numbers! This book is the first comprehensive account of the mathematical techniques and results used in the modelling of juggling patterns. This includes all known and many new results about juggling sequences and matrices, the mathematical skeletons of juggling patterns.Many useful and entertaining tips and tricks spice up the mathematical menu presented in this book. There are detailed descriptions of jugglable and attractive juggling sequences, easy zero-gravity juggling, robot juggling, as well as fun juggling of words, anti-balls, and irrational numbers. The book also includes novel, or at least not very well known connections with topics such as bell ringing, knot theory, and the many body problem. In fact, the chapter on mathematical bell ringing has been expanded into the most comprehensive survey in the literature of the mathematics used by bell ringers.Accessible at all levels of mathematical sophistication, this is a book for mathematically wired jugglers, mathematical bell ringers, combinatorists, mathematics educators, and just about anybody interested in beautiful and unusual applications of mathematics.

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Table of contents :
front-matter……Page 1
1Juggling An Introduction……Page 16
2Simple Juggling……Page 22
3Multiplex Juggling……Page 80
4Multihand Juggling……Page 99
5Practical Juggling……Page 131
6Jingling, or Ringing the Changes……Page 154
7Juggling Loose Ends……Page 190
back-matter……Page 214