Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of notation
- Introduction
- 1 Making and flexing flexagons
- 2 Early history of flexagons
- 3 Geometry of flexagons
- 4 Hexaflexagons
- 5 Hexaflexagon variations
- 6 Square flexagons
- 7 Introduction to convex polygon flexagons
- 8 Typical convex polygon flexagons
- 9 Ring flexagons
- 10 Distorted polygon flexagons
- 11 Flexahedra
- References
- Flexagon index
- Subject index
2 - Early history of flexagons
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of notation
- Introduction
- 1 Making and flexing flexagons
- 2 Early history of flexagons
- 3 Geometry of flexagons
- 4 Hexaflexagons
- 5 Hexaflexagon variations
- 6 Square flexagons
- 7 Introduction to convex polygon flexagons
- 8 Typical convex polygon flexagons
- 9 Ring flexagons
- 10 Distorted polygon flexagons
- 11 Flexahedra
- References
- Flexagon index
- Subject index
Summary
Flexagons are a twentieth century discovery. Arthur H. Stone, a postgraduate student at Princeton University in America, discovered them in 1939 while folding strips of paper. A Flexagon Committee was set up at Princeton University to investigate flexagons. In 1940 two members of the committee worked out a mathematical theory of flexagons but this was never published. The committee disbanded in 1941 following America's entry into the Second World War and for some time there was little visible activity. Interest revived in the late 1950s through the publication of two articles on flexagons in Scientific American and the publication of the first paper on flexagons. The subject can be said to have reached maturity with the issue in 1962 of a comprehensive report on flexagons. This report is a key reference, but it was not published in a form which reached a wide audience.
The discovery of flexagons
In terms of the history of mathematics, which goes back thousands of years (Cromwell 1997, Hirsch 1997, Sawyer 1943) flexagons are a relatively recent, twentieth century, discovery. Their early history is quite well documented as background information in publications on flexagons (Conrad and Hartline 1962, Cundy and Rollett 1981, Gardner 1965, Gardner 1966, Gardner 1988, Hilton et al. 1997, Johnson 1974, Kenneway 1987, McIntosh 2000a, McLean 1979, Madachy 1968, Mitchell 1999, Oakley and Wisner 1957).
Hexaflexagons were the first variety of flexagon to be discovered and investigated. They were discovered in the autumn of 1939 by Arthur H. Stone.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Flexagons Inside Out , pp. 14 - 17Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003