Dénes Nagy:

Symmetro-graphy
(Bibliographic section)
 

Symmetry:
A bibliography of interdisciplinary books
(university-textbooks, scholarly monographs, popular-scientific works)

About 600 books in 25 languages
 

This bibliography includes

- about 600 books, plus their additional editions, close to 1,000 items (collections of papers by different authors, abstracts and proceedings of meetings, booklets shorter than 50 pages, and manuscripts are not considered),
- on symmetry (they refer to this term or its derivatives, including antisymmetry, asymmetry, dissymmetry, directly in their titles),
- in 25 languages (Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Rumanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovakian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian),
- from all of the continents (from Brazil to Mongolia, from Mexico to Australia, from Norway to Mozambique),
- with the full bibliographic description of each book (Bulgarian, Chinese, Greek, Japanese, Russian, and Ukrainian names and titles are romanized), and
- with translations of all book-titles that have no English versions.

The books are classified according to a system that was developed for this purpose. Since the "linear" classification of interdisciplinary books is impossible, there are cross-references among sections.
 


Contents:

0 Introduction

1 Interdisciplinary textbooks and teaching materials

      1.1 Interdisciplinary works in a broad sense
            1.1.1 General introductions
            1.1.2 Specific scientific fields (with an outlook to arts)
            1.1.3 Arts and design (with an outlook to science)
            1.1.4 Philosophy
      1.2 More specialized works of a given field (with some interdisciplinary outlook)
            1.2.1 Mathematics
                  1.2.1.1 Mathematical education, elementary mathematics
            1.2.2 Crystallography
            1.2.3 Physics (other than crystallography)
            1.2.4 Chemistry (other than crystallography)
                  1.2.4.1 Chemical reactions (orbital theory)
            1.2.5 Biology
            1.2.6 Earth sciences
            1.2.7 Engineering, technology
            1.2.8 Art and the Humanities

      1.3 Graduate textbooks: Mathematics and/or physics

2 Interdisciplinary monographs and popular-scientific books

      2.1 General works with systematic surveys
            2.1.1 Pioneering works published until 1952 (when three books appeared
                  independently by Jaskowski, Weyl, and Wolf and Kuhn)

            2.1.2 Works published after 1952
      2.2 Works on pattern creation and pattern analysis
            2.2.1 Pattern creation
            2.2.2 Pattern analysis: comprehensive surveys
            2.2.3 Pattern analysis: special fields

3 More Specialized monographs with some interdisciplinary interest

      3.1 History and philosophy of science, cognitive science, psychology, general education
      3.2 Exact sciences (mathematics, physics, and chemistry, including mathematical
            crystallography)

            3.2.1 General works and popular-scientific books
                  3.2.1.1 Colored symmetry (a mathematical method for describing physical
                              properties of crystals)

                  3.2.1.2 Orbital symmetry and other symmetry principles in the theory of
                              chemical reactions

            3.2.2 Structure of matter - atomic or molecular level; applications of group theory
            3.2.3 Structure of matter - subatomic level; applications of mathematical methods
                        in quantum theory and particle physics

            3.2.4 Astronomy, astrophysics
            3.2.5 Other mathematical-physical questions, applied mathematics
                  3.2.5.1 Geometry and algebra
                  3.2.5.2 Mathematical analysis, theoretical mechanics, nonlinear
                              mathematics, and related questions

      3.3 Descriptive sciences (life sciences, earth sciences) and mathematical models
            in economics, medicine, and technology

            3.3.1 Life sciences (biology, medicine, and psychology)
            3.3.2 Earth sciences (mineralogy and geology)
            3.3.3 Mathematical models in economics, medicine, and technology
      3.4 Art and the humanities
            3.4.1 Anthropology
            3.4.2 Architecture and design
                  3.4.2.1 Design with dynamic symmetry (a system of proportions based
                              on square roots of integers)

            3.4.3 Visual art (painting, sculpture, garden art)
            3.4.4 Music
            3.4.5 Literature and linguistics
      3.5 Recreation, games, and sport

4 Interdisciplinary books on dissymmetry, broken symmetry, asymmetry (including symmetry vs. asymmetry, asymmetry of brain, and asymmetry of time)

      4.1 General
      4.2 Chemistry and biology, including asymmetry of brain
            4.2.1 Asymmetric synthesis
      4.3 Mathematics and physics, including asymmetry of time
      4.4 Linguistics, literature, semiotics
 



 

0 Introduction

As it is emphasized in the heading, all of the listed books are on symmetry (antisymmetry, asymmetry, dissymmetry, and other derivatives): they refer to this fact directly in their titles. Since the expression "symmetry" became an international word, its adapted versions, with minor phonetical changes, are available in many languages. In the case of Far Eastern books those are considered that use
- the Chinese term duìchèn (modern Mandarin reading, Pinyin [sound assembly] system of romanization; which is tui ch'eng according to the earlier Wade-Giles romanization),
* its adopted Korean version tae-ch'ing (McCune-Reischauer system of romanization),
* its adopted Japanese version taishou (revised Hepburn system of romanization),
or
- the Japanese shinmetorii (the adopted international word, which development has no Chinese or Korean equivalent).
The cited Chinese term, which is written in two characters, is related to objects facing each other to form a pair (bilateral symmetry), but its meaning can be extended to the case of rotational symmetry. Still, it is more specific than the Western "symmetry". Perhaps this observation also contributed to the fact that in modern Japanese both terms are used: taishou (adopted from China and written in Sino-Japanese kanji characters) and shinmetorii (adopted from Western languages and written in the katakana phonetic syllabary).

Note the following important conventions:

(1) Books without reference to symmetry (or its derivatives) in the title ® not listed.

Unfortunately there are many books of this category which deal with symmetry-related topics. Obviously, the exclusion of these books has some disadvantages, but
- it was necessary to limit the scopes of this bibliography,
- there are some good bibliographies on polyhedra, proportions, rhythm, tilings and patterns, respectively, which are available for further reference.
 


HYPERTEXT

Bibliography of bibliographies (or comprehensive lists of references) of some symmetry-related fields

(a) Polyhedra

Cromwell, P. (1997) Polyhedra, Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, pp. 416-438.

Hart, G. - http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/references.html

(b) Proportions in art and nature

Graf, H. (1958) Bibliographie zum Problem der Proportionen: Literatur über Proportionen, Mass und Zahl in Architektur, Bildender Kunst und Natur, [Bibliography for the Problem of Proportions: Literature on Proportions, Measure, and Number in Architecture, Fine Art, and Nature, in German], Speyer [Germany]: Pfälzische Landesbibliothek, 96 pp.
* Also see the additions to this bibliography in the following book:
Wittkower, R. (1971) Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, New York: Norton, 1971, "Appendix 3: Bibliographical notes on the theory of proportion", 162-166.

Naredi-Rainer, P. von (1982) Architektur und Harmonie: Zahl, Mass und Proportion in der abendländischen Baukunst, [Architecture and Harmony: Number, Measure and Proportion in Occidental Architecture, in German], Köln: DuMont, "Bibliographie", 232-283.

(c) Rhythm

Winick, S. D. (1974) Rhythm: An Annotated Bibliography, Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, v + 157 pp.

(d) Tilings and patterns

Grünbaum, B. and Shephard, G. C. (1987) Tilings and Patterns, New York: Freeman, "References", pp. 653-694.
* Abridged ed., Tilings and Patterns; An Introduction, New York: Freeman, 1989, "References", 401-442. [The first seven chapters of the original book and the full list of references].


(2) In the case of translated books:
- There are books where the original titles refer to symmetry (or its derivatives), but the translated versions are not ® in this case we still list the bibliographic data of the translated versions.
- There are books where the original titles do not refer to symmetry (or its derivatives), but the translated versions introduce this term ® in this case we do not list the book and its translated versions.
In short, our decision is based on the author's original intention, not on the later view of the translators.

(3) Items shorter than 50 pages are also excluded. We plan, however, to publish further bibliographies on symmetry and related topics, covering not only university-textbooks, scholarly monographs, and popular-scientific books, but also collections of essays, proceedings, and other works.

International aspects

It is interesting to note that many references in this bibliography are not yet available in major computer catalogs, data banks, and electronic bookstores: they frequently miss older items and books written in languages that are not widely spoken at their centers. We think, however, that these works are also important. Often they include tables and illustrations that are easy to understand without reading the actual language. A beautiful example is Kumagai and Sawada textbook Moyou to shinmetorii (Ornamental Patterns and Symmetry, in Japanese) in Section 1.1.3. In addition to this, the data of translated books 
- may help the international cooperation among interested scholars and instructors,
- may provide useful information to lecturers and students who visit particular countries and would like to refer to locally available works,
- may orient publishers and translators.

We observed in various cases that translators of books did not revise the list of references, just adopted it. This method led to such comic cases where, for example, an English book on symmetry (translated from German) refers not to the original version of papers and books in English, but to their later German translations. Should the reader learn German to follow the references? I also believe that even publishers did not realize some basic data on translated books that are available in our bibliography. The lack of information led to duplicating or even triplicating the same work. I have no different explanation of the surprizing fact that Hermann Weyl's book Symmetry (Princeton, 1952) has
- three different Spanish translations: (1) Buenos Aires, 1958; (2) Barcelona, 1974; (3) Madrid, 1990.
- three different Chinese translations (with see slightly different titles!): (1) Beijing [Peking], 1986; (2) Taibei [Taipei, Taiwan], (3) Shanghai.
These are not reprint editions of the same translation, but different interpretations of the book.

If a book has more than one translation, we list these in a chronological order (according to the first editions in the corresponding languages).

In those cases where a translated titles significantly differ from the original ones (or a new subtitles are added), these "modified" titles are also translated into English. For example, Pagels' book 
Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985; 2nd ed., New York: Bantam, 1991
became in Japanese 
Toki no hajimari e no tabi: Taishousei no butsuri [Journey to the Beginning of Time: The Physics of Symmetry], 
while, as a further twist, the second edition was translated as 
Hoshi kara ginga e: Heesheru no niwa [From the Stars to the Milky Way: Herschel's Garden].
There is no similar "problem" with the Italian and Portuguese translations of the same book. They follow more or less the original title and therefore these titles are not translated into English.

Concerning translated books, we give the possible "new" (transliterated) names of authors in those cases where these are important to locate the book in the corresponding language territory, e.g., 
- Sheikov, a Bulgarian author (in English transliterated form)
became
- Scheikov in the German translation of his book,
- Sejkov in the Hungarian version.
Luckily there is no similar problem in Japan: most library catalogs list the Japanese translations of foreign books under the original names of authors.

The translation of terms is often a very difficult task. In some cases we added alternative expressions <interrupting the translated titles> or brief notes [in brackets at the end]. The related problems led to two case studies and related hypertext essays:
- objectology or object-design as possible English equivalents of the Japanese monogaku,
- futaishou as a possible Japanese equivalant of dissymmetry (lack of some elements of symmetry).

Some conventions used in this bibliography

To keep the bibliography shorter, we adopted the following conventions: 
- If a book is published in a series whose title is important to find some extra information about it, we give the series title after the actual title of the book (note that the title of the book is italicized, while the series title is not). 
- For place of publication, only the first one is given, followed by the name of the state or country if any difficulty may occur in locating the corresponding city [and maybe some additional information in brackets, e.g., the new names of some places in the former U.S.S.R.].
- The names of publishers are given in short form, e.g., we have Springer instead of Springer Verlag. We use, however, the full names of publishers where the sort forms may lead to ambiguities, e.g., we should make clear that a book is published either by the Academy of Science of the U.S.S.R. (Akademiya Nauk SSSR) or by the Publishing House of the same institution (Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR). 
- In the case of parallel editions, we refer to both publishers.
- Reprint, paperback, and new editions are also listed; these are marked by asterisk (*).
- Translations are listed in new paragraphs; these are marked by dash (-).
- In some cases there are brief notes after the books [in brackets].
- We use the conventional transliteration of Cyrillic words [sometimes giving alternative versions of names in brackets]. 
- In the case of the transliteration of Japanese names and titles, we use the system preferred by most wordprocessors and some computerized data banks where, e.g., instead ô and û, we have ou and uu (without diacritical symbols!), respectively. We do not introduce, however, this style in case of "Tokyo", because this city is known in this form, while the linguistically correct "Toukyou" would be very strange for most readers. 

We use some standard abbreviations: ed. (edition or editor), eds. (editions), ibid. (ibidem, in the same place), pp. (pages), trans. (translation).

A request

Of course this bibliography is not complete. We kindly ask our readers to report any missing item. We will regularly update this bibliography.



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