Abstract / Synopsis
Marcus du Sautoy’s Blueprints: How Mathematics Shapes Creativity (2025) makes a provocative claim that creativity emerges not in opposition to constraint, but through it. Working through nine mathematical “blueprints” — symmetry, randomness, the Fibonacci sequence, among others — du Sautoy traces recurring structural patterns across artistic practice, natural phenomena, and mathematical thought. The argument is ambitious and persuasive. In this review we consider what the book adds to longstanding conversations about the relationship between scientific and humanistic ways of knowing, and reflect on what it means to reframe mathematics as an imaginative and exploratory enterprise rather than a purely technical discipline.
Recommended Citation
Sangeetha Balakrishnan & Latha R, "Mathematics as Creative Structure: A Review of Marcus du Sautoy’s Blueprints," Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Volume 16 Issue 2 (July 2026), pages 425-429. . Available at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/vol16/iss2/23
