Juggling notation

Diagrams for the cascade pattern, siteswap: 3
Shannon's theorem for the cascade pattern

Juggling notation is the written depiction of concepts and practices in juggling.[1][2] Toss juggling patterns have a reputation for being "easier done than said" – while it might be easy to learn a given maneuver and demonstrate it for others, it is often much harder to communicate the idea accurately using speech or plain text. To circumvent this problem, various numeric or diagram-based notation systems have been developed to facilitate communication of patterns or tricks between jugglers, as well the investigation and discovery of new patterns.

A juggling notation system (based on music notation) was first proposed by Dave Storer in 1978 and while the first juggling diagram (a ladder diagram), by Claude Shannon around 1981, was not printed till 2010, the first printed diagram and second oldest notation system were proposed by Jeff Walker in 1982.[3]

  1. ^ Klarreich, Erica (December 25, 2004). "New juggling tricks created by maths (archived, only accessible for paying subscribers)". New Scientist (2479). Retrieved August 29, 2009.
  2. ^ Beek, Peter J.; Lewbel, Arthur (November 1995). "The Science of Juggling" (PDF). Scientific American. 273 (5): 92–97. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1195-92. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 15, 2009. Retrieved August 29, 2009.
  3. ^ Lewbel, Arthur (1996). "The Academic Juggler: The Invention Of Juggling Notations Archived 2014-07-14 at the Wayback Machine", Juggle.org.