Blueprints : How mathematics shapes creativity

WHAT TO READ IN 2025' FINANCIAL TIMESMany artists are unaware of the mathematics that bubble beneath their craft while some consciously use it for inspiration. Our instincts might tell us that these two subjects are incompatible forces with nothing in common but what if we’re wrong?Marcus du Sautoy acclaimed mathematician and Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford looks to art music design and literature to uncover the key mathematical structures that underpin both human creativity and the natural world.Blueprints takes us from the earliest stone circles to the modernist architecture of Le Corbusier from Bach’s circular compositions to Radiohead’s disruptive soundscapes and from Shakespeare’s hidden numerical clues to the Dada artists who embraced randomness. Instead of polar opposites we find a complementary relationship that spans a vast historical and geographic landscape.