Presents the latest groundbreaking theoretical foundation to shape optimization in a form accessible to mathematicians, scientists and engineers.

The tools to use for problems where the modeling, optimization, or control variable is the structure of a geometric object.

An instant New York Times Bestseller! “Unreasonably entertaining . . . reveals how geometric thinking can allow for everything from fairer American elections to better pandemic planning.” —The New York Times From the New York Times-bestselling author of How Not to Be Wrong—himself a world-class geometer—a far-ranging exploration of the power of geometry, which turns out to help us think better about practically everything. How should a democracy choose its representatives? How can you stop a pandemic from sweeping the world? How do computers learn to play Go, and why is learning Go so much easier for them than learning to read a sentence? Can ancient Greek proportions predict the stock market? (Sorry, no.) What should your kids learn in school if they really want to learn to think? All these are questions about geometry. For real. If you're like most people, geometry is a sterile and dimly remembered exercise you gladly left behind in the dust of ninth grade, along with your braces and active romantic interest in pop singers. If you recall any of it, it's plodding through a series of miniscule steps only to prove some fact about triangles that was obvious to you in the first place. That's not geometry. Okay, it is geometry, but only a tiny part, which has as much to do with geometry in all its flush modern richness as conjugating a verb has to do with a great novel. Shape reveals the geometry underneath some of the most important scientific, political, and philosophical problems we face. Geometry asks: Where are things? Which things are near each other? How can you get from one thing to another thing? Those are important questions. The word "geometry"comes from the Greek for "measuring the world." If anything, that's an undersell. Geometry doesn't just measure the world—it explains it. Shape shows us how.

This considerably enriched new edition provides a self-contained presentation of the mathematical foundations, constructions, and tools necessary for studying problems where the modeling, optimization, or control variable is the shape or the structure of a geometric object.

Collection of popular articles on geometry from distinguished mathematicians and educationalists.

Many things around us have properties that depend on their shape--for example, the drag characteristics of a rigid body in a flow. This self-contained overview of differential geometry explains how to differentiate a function (in the calculus sense) with respect to a "shape variable." This approach, which is useful for understanding mathematical models containing geometric partial differential equations (PDEs), allows readers to obtain formulas for geometric quantities (such as curvature) that are clearer than those usually offered in differential geometry texts. Readers will learn how to compute sensitivities with respect to geometry by developing basic calculus tools on surfaces and combining them with the calculus of variations. Several applications that utilize shape derivatives and many illustrations that help build intuition are included.