Publications

This book addresses the mathematical rationality contained in the making of string figures. It does so by using interdisciplinary methods borrowed from anthropology, mathematics, history and philosophy of mathematics. The practice of string figure-making has long been carried out in many societies, and particularly in those of oral tradition. It consists in applying a succession of operations to a string (knotted into a loop), mostly using the ...

This article examines a chapter of the popular book Mathematical Recreations and Essays(5th to 9th editions) written by the Cambridge mathematician Walter William Rouse Ball (1850–1925). This chapter is devoted to “String Figures”, a procedural activity which consists in producing geometrical forms with a loop of string and which is carried out in many traditional societies throughout the world. By analyzing the way in which Ball selected some ...

Circular built environment transitions — systemic shifts toward building practices prioritizing material reuse, renovation over new construction, designing for disassembly, and incorporating bio-based and recycled materials — are grounded in circular economy principles. Simple visual representations of these principles — such as circles, ladders, butterflies, and triangles — have played a significant role in popularizing the concept and raising ...

In this study we investigated the effects of seeking versus avoiding proximity to mother on children’s emotional recovery from a stressor. Sixty children 9–12 years underwent a moodinduction procedure and were randomly assigned to seek proximity from or avoid an image of their mothers. The effect of this manipulation on children’s self‐reported negative emotions, skin conductance and heart rate variability (respiratory sinus arhythmia) was ...

String figure-making is a procedural activity carried out in many societies of oral tradition. It consists in producing geometrical forms using a string knotted into a loop. In 1988, an American mathematician, Thomas Storer (1938-2006), published a long article in which he developed several formal approaches of string figure-making. One of these is the Heart-sequence. Passing the string around a finger forms a "loop". The point is then to focus, ...

The practice of string figure-making has been observed since the late nineteenth century in various cultural areas, especially in societies characterized by the use of oral tradition. This activity consists in applying to a loop of string a succession of operations performed with the fingers - and sometimes with the teeth, the wrists or the feet - to obtain a figure. This activity is still practiced today by the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New ...

The practice of string figure-making has long been carried out in many societies, and particularly in those of oral tradition. It consists in producing geometrical forms with a loop of string, using mostly the fingers, and sometimes the wrists, the mouth or the feet. This article deals with some of this practice’s cultural and cognitive aspects in the Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea. Various ethnographical sources suggest that string figures ...