ABSTRACT
Mathematicians, like artists, are concerned with the essences of things. They can’t resist taking com-monplace objects and looking for hidden patterns that reveal their fundamental structure. Consider, for instance, the subject of maps. In our everyday lives, we use maps for specific, practical purposes: to navigate from place to place, to explore new terrain, to understand the relationships between faraway nations. It is the mathematician’s impulse to peer beneath the surface and ask more elemental questions. What is a map? How does it convey information? How does the geometry of the world being mapped influence the underlying structure of the map itself?
