Touring Persia with a Guide Named … Hermann Weyl

Abstract

A journey across the lands that were part of Persia long ago offers a friendly introduction to symmetry and symmetry groups, as presented in Hermann Weyl’s seminal and popular book, Symmetry (1952). Weyl’s intent was to show how geometrical transformations first, then mathematical structures, could be better understood from a cultural point of view through art and architecture. Our intent is to provide a complementary set of selected pictures of Persian monuments to illustrate Weyl’s ideas. Following the master, we have focused on different kinds of symmetries, starting from the simplest and oldest to those that are more complex, disregarding chronology or geography within the lands of Persia.

Born in 1954, Alain Juhel is a former student at the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan, France. Since 1977, he has been training second-year undergraduate students for enrolment in the French Grandes Écoles (Science & Engineering Schools). His main interests are in arithmetic, geometry and trying to improve the status of mathematics as a popular science.