Gems of Geometry

This book is based on lectures given several times at Reading University in England at their School of Continuing Education, from about 2002. One might wonder why I gave these lectures. I had been attending a few lectures on diverse subjects such as Music, Latin and Greek and my wife suggested that perhaps I should give some lectures myself. I was somewhat taken aback by this but then realised that I did have some useful material lying around that would make a starting point. When I was a boy (a long time ago) I much enjoyed reading books such as Mathematical Snapshots by Steinhaus and Mathematical Recreations and Essays by Rouse Ball. Moreover, I had made a few models such as the minimal set of squares that fit together to make a rectangle, some sets of Chinese Rings, and 31 coloured cubes and these items were still around. This starting point was much enhanced by some models that my daughter Janet had made when at school. A junior class had been instructed to make some models for an open day but had made a mess instead. Janet (then in the sixth form) was asked to save the day. Thus I also had available models of many regular figures including the Poinsot- Kepler figures and the compound of five tetrahedra and that of five cubes.