Was it necessary for a 17th century painter to know principles of optics to hide a skull in one
of his masterpieces? Is it possible the violent deaths of Roman emperors obey a statistical
law? Are there connections between market trends and geometry? How did Islamic artists draw
almost perfectly regular nine-sided polygons when these cannot be traced with the use of
compasses? Dirk Huylebrouk asks these and other exciting questions in this collection of essays
originally written for the science magazine EOS a Dutch equivalent of Scientific American
distributed in Belgium and in The Netherlands. Every chapter can be read independently as some
subjects are repeated and not strictly interconnected. Such is the case for instance of the
golden section an often-recurring topic in general mathematics. The reader will appreciate the
original point of view expressed through each chapter which makes this book stand out against
the general information one can find by browsing the generalmedia. The subtly provocative
character of some parts is meant to stimulate the reader for further exploration. The book's
title itself may already generate surprise. Sure to many mathematics seems to come from hell
but the darkness in the title in fact refers to the lugubrious stories about math and skulls
murders or World War II. There is also a more down-to-earth part about math and maps money
Facebook folding paper shapes in ice and the most earthly yet unsolved math problems. 'Bright
mathematics' alludes to Vedic Islam New Age a meta-divine section and is concluded by an
interview with a top mathematician who also wrote about the existence of God.
