Last edited 14aug00

Pencil, Chalk and Inkpen: The Topological Picturebook

George Francis, U. Illinois


This particular duncehat occupied my kitchen's blackboard for a week. Its photo is in an out-of-print picturebook whose original purpose was to encourage mathematicians to illustrate their work and to help artists to understand the abstract ideas expressed by such drawings. Instead, it has achieved a certain popularity among graphicists who, abandoning photo-realistic rendering, seek to teach computers how to draw like an artist. So that's what this illustrated talk will be about.