Leonardo

spacing and size, as evidenced in this special issue of Leonardo, for which MathType was used. MathType is not the first program to allow good mathematical composition on a computer. Historians of typography would probably give that accolade to Donald Knuth's computer language TEX,which is widely used in many forms. The disadvantage ofTEX is that it is essentially a programming language, requiring memorization of often arcane operators and functions to describe the elements of equations and their relative positions. The cryptic quality ofTEX lives on, divorced from the versatility ofTEX, in many so-called 'equation editors' in word-processing and publishing packages such as WordPerfect, Word and Ventura Publisher. In contrast, MathType's beauty is that it is graphical. It allows typesetters , at all times, to see clearly what they are setting, and every element of an equation can be entered in a manner that is intuitive. To set an equation for solving a quadratic, TEX requires input of this sort: {{-b\pm xsqrt {b"2-4ac}} \over (2a)}. With MathType, TheMailiffiWtimlmremgrnc~ Reviewed Uy Clifford A. Pickouer, 37 Yorkshire Lane, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, U.S.A. This richly illustrated journal publishes articles about mathematics, about mathematicians and about the history and culture of mathematics. Articles often have a touch of humor and controversy . Although some articles require a good deal of mathematical sophistication , others appeal to a broad audience. In fact, the topics are fascinating and varied and include those that are helpful to artists inspired by mathematics. For example, a recent issue featured the bronze and marble sculptures of mathematician Helaman Ferguson, who translates theorems into stone and metal. Another recent issue described the mathematics connected with Gothic tracery windows . And, in an article entitled "Mathematical Notions in Preliterate Societies", the author answered questions such as "What level of mathematical development was obtained 394 Current Media I merely type in the variables and simple mathematical operators; the program converts hyphens into minuses, sets spacing automatically and italicizes all variables while keeping standard functions in roman type. More arcane mathematical operators are selected from cleverly grouped collections ofelements, or from customizable button bars. Users who hate mice will be glad to know that every element can be entered with the keyboard alone. The program comes with full sets of custom-symbol fonts and Greek fonts with corresponding italics, plus characters to build seamless fences. MathType's carefully considered defaults are completely customizable, including the size of the superscripts and subscripts, the fonts and weights that are used for text, vector attributes , Greek symbols and variables, the spacing between lines and matrix elements, and the 'nudge size': the increments with which one can finetune letter-spacing. The program's manual is remarkably clear and usable , especially given the complexity of the subject of mathematical typogIV . Periodical Reviews before societies developed written languages ?"; "How much of early recorded mathematics is a recording of what was known long previously?" Most issues of the Mathematical Intelligencer display interesting postage stamps relating to mathematics. The journal also has a regularly appearing entertainment section and book review section. The journal may be obtained from: Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, U.S.A. ISSN: 0343-6993. The Mathematicafoumal Reviewed Uy Robert S. Lansdon, 3830 Annapolis Ct., So. San Francisco, CA 94080, U.S.A. The MathematicaJoumal, published quarterly, is a high- qualityjournal addressed to readers interested in computer graphics, symbolic computing and numerical calculations. The editors are to be commended for providing the option of supplementary floppy diskettes for either Apple Macintosh or IBM-eompatible perraphy . The only criticism I have of the IBM-eompatible version of the program is that it requires the use ofMicrosoft Windows-a serious drawback given the instability ofWindows 3.0. (Design Science also publishes a version for the Macintosh.) MathType is well integrated into Windows, and the program can write files in the Windows Metafiles and Encapsulated PostScript format (thus its output can be placed as graphics in all major text-processing packages). An added plus is that MathType can translate its output into 'plain-vanilla' TEXcode. (Design Science promises support for less-verbose variants such as AMS-TEX and lATEX in the near future.) SURFACE EVOLVER by...