Abstract

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 string figures within ethnographical publications and conceived the structure of this chapter, it appears that he implicitly brought to light the mathematical dimension of this practice.

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