Euler's gem : the polyhedron formula and the birth of topology / David S. Richeson.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [295]-308) and index.

Leonhard Euler and his three "great" friends -- What is a polyhedron? -- The five perfect bodies -- The Pythagorean brotherhood and Plato's atomic theory -- Euclid and his elements -- Kepler's polyhedral universe -- Euler's gem -- Platonic solids, gold balls, Fullerenes, and geodesic domes -- Scooped by Descartes? -- Legendre gets it right -- A stroll through KoÌnigsberg -- Cauchy's flattened polyhedra -- Planar graphs, geoboards, and brussels sprouts -- It's a colorful world -- New problems and new proofs -- Rubber sheets, hollow doughnuts, and crazy bottles -- Are they the same, or are they different? -- A knotty problem -- Combing the hair on a coconut -- When topology controls geometry -- The topology of curvy surfaces -- Navigating in n dimensions -- Henri PoincareÌ and the ascendance of topology -- The million-dollar question.