The common injunction “Don’t reinvent the wheel,” suggesting as it does the futility of attempting to change something that is already flawless, points not just to the perfection of the wheel as mechanical component but also to its pervasiveness as a symbol of simple excellence and aptness, of eminently reliable functionality. Representing an originary moment in the narrative of industrial progress, the wheel has also long been a familiar figure outside the world of work and locomotion, in contexts as disparate as religion (Buddhist prayer wheels, the biblical “wheels within wheels” of Ezekiel) and games of chance (wheels of fortune, roulette wheels).
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issue 51, with a special section on “Wheels,” features Julia Davidson on the history of volvelles, paper wheels used for measurement and calculation; Adam Lynch on fate and the wheel of fortune; and Regine Brunner on the birth of Bibendum, the Michelin Man. Elsewhere in the issue: Brian Dillon on the underwater illustrations of Philip Henry Gosse; Aaron Schuster on “Anti-Sexus,” Andrei Platonov’s satirical tirade against sexual pleasure; and Margaret Wertheim in conversation with mathematician Neil Sloane, founder of an online database of significant integer sequences.