Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Alex's Adventures in Numberland
    Unavailable
    Alex's Adventures in Numberland
    Unavailable
    Alex's Adventures in Numberland
    Ebook695 pages9 hours

    Alex's Adventures in Numberland

    By Alex Bellos

    4.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    A tenth anniversary edition of the iconic book about the wonderful world of maths

    Sunday Times bestseller | Shortlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize

    'Original and highly entertaining' Sunday Times
    'A page turner about humanity's strange, never easy and, above all, never dull relationship with numbers' New Scientist
    'Will leave you hooked on numbers' Daily Telegraph

    In this richly entertaining and accessible book, Alex Bellos explodes the myth that maths is best left to the geeks, and demonstrates the remarkable ways it's linked to our everyday lives.

    Alex explains the surprising geometry of the 50p piece, and the strategy of how best to gamble it in a casino. He shines a light on the mathematical patterns in nature, and on the peculiar predictability of random behaviour. He eats a potato crisp whose revolutionary shape was unpalatable to the ancient Greeks, and he shows the deep connections between maths, religion and philosophy.

    From the world's fastest mental calculators in Germany to numerologists in the US desert, from a startlingly numerate chimpanzee in Japan to venerable Hindu sages in India, these dispatches from 'Numberland' are an unlikely but exhilarating cocktail of history, reportage and mathematical proofs. The world of maths is a much friendlier and more colourful place than you might have imagined.

    This anniversary edition is fully revised and updated.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateApr 5, 2010
    ISBN9781408811146
    Unavailable
    Alex's Adventures in Numberland
    Author

    Alex Bellos

    Alex Bellos has a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy from Oxford University. Curator-in-residence at the Science Museum and the Guardian’s math blogger, he has worked in London and Rio de Janeiro, where he was the paper's unusually numerate foreign correspondent. In 2002 he wrote Futebol, a critically acclaimed book about Brazilian football, and in 2006 he ghostwrote Pelé's autobiography, which was a number one bestseller. Here’s Looking at Euclid was shortlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize and was a Sunday Times bestseller for more than four months.

    Read more from Alex Bellos

    Related to Alex's Adventures in Numberland

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Double Trouble

      May 15, 2022

      Double Trouble
      7 min read

    • Article

      Tailoring The Classics

      May 7, 2020

      Fashion plays a big part in writing, as it does in so many walks of life. I mean literary fashion, by the way – if writing success depended on having elegant dress sense, I’d have abandoned hope long ago. The harsh reality is that if the type of stor

      6 min read

    • Article

      Subscribers’ News

      Mar 7, 2024

      I’ve always had a passion for short stories, ever since I was a young girl, writes subscriber Esther Chilton. I can remember writing an adventure series when I was in my first year in secondary school. There weren’t any rules – we just had to use ou

      5 min read

    • Article

      Wondering I’s

      Jun 9, 2021

      Wondering I’s
      4 min read

    • Article

      TRAVEL Guy

      Aug 12, 2021

      TRAVEL Guy
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Original Search Engine

      Mar 7, 2022

      The index is something that we use every day: the Internet, Google. This is why this book is relevant—because this is the age of search; Google is an index. The post The Original Search Engine appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      TRAVEL Guy

      Aug 12, 2021

      TRAVEL Guy
      8 min read

    • Article

      TRAVEL Guy

      Aug 12, 2021

      TRAVEL Guy
      8 min read

    • Article

      TRAVEL Guy

      Aug 12, 2021

      TRAVEL Guy
      8 min read

    • Article

      Book Reviews

      Apr 16, 2020

      Book Reviews
      4 min read

    • Article

      About Brooklyn, All of Brooklyn: The Millions Interviews Thomas J. Campanella

      Oct 16, 2019

      Deep‐south Brooklyn is the flyover country of New York City. I want to make people think again, and more deeply, about Brooklyn, all of Brooklyn. The post About Brooklyn, All of Brooklyn: The Millions Interviews Thomas J. Campanella appeared first on

      7 min read

    • Article

      Shelf Life

      Feb 1, 2024

      ©Rachel Pendlebury Red Side Story is my current book, published this month. It is the sequel to Shades of Grey, a book I wrote ten years ago, a dystopian thriller set in a world where the social hierarchy is governed by the colours you can see. Grey

      7 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Stephen Dodson

      Dec 1, 2020

      For me, the book of the year was David Graeber’s Debt: The First 5,000 Years. The post A Year in Reading: Stephen Dodson appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Breaking Into Travel Writing

      Jun 15, 2020

      Travel writers are adventurers. Swashbuckling storytellers who immerse themselves in exotic settings, recording their experiences with aggressive sensory detail—the smell of a Moroccan spice market, the feel of an Antarctic wind gust—to transport rea

      4 min read

    • Article

      Year in Reading: Emily St. John Mandel

      Dec 23, 2018

      It’s the possibility of unexpected connections between narratives that fascinated me and kept me in love with reading over time. The post Year in Reading: Emily St. John Mandel appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Flashback 40

      Jul 9, 2020

      According to a 2014 survey, most readers of GAMES WORLD OF PUZZLES have been supporting this publication for a long time. Many of you, for years; some of you, for decades. Several of you have even been reading since the first issue of Games magazine,

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Change Of Scene

      Apr 3, 2022

      A Change Of Scene
      9 min read

    • Article

      As Everybody Knows…

      Nov 4, 2021

      From Mozart’s Murder to Cleopatra’s Asp Graeme Donald Michael O’Mara 2021 Pb, 256pp, £7.99, ISBN 9781789293623 Ten Great Lies and How They Shaped the World Otto English Wellbeck 2021 Hb, 320pp, £16.99, ISBN 9781787396395 You wait all day for a scepti

      4 min read

    • Article

      Simply Phenomenal!

      Jul 14, 2022

      Hunt Emerson Knockabout Press 2022 Pb, 224pp, £22.99, ISBN 9780861662906 Even after working on FT for well over two decades, some things never, as they say, get old. One of those things is the arrival, every four weeks, of a new “Phenomenomix” strip

      8 min read

    Reviews for Alex's Adventures in Numberland

    4.5/5

    14 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      There is a difference between a primer and something written for laymen. This book more closely aligns with my interpretation of the former. For people who have no familiarity with mathematical concepts, this book would probably be delightful. For those who are aware of the more famous math intrigues but are amateurs (or, like me, more interested in the history, applications, and explanations than the proofs), this book retreads old, familiar ground. Anyone who watched Numb3rs or – painful though it may be to say it – read Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code are probably going to find themselves rather bored by many of the chapters. The section on the Golden Ratio is particularly yawn-inducing; it adds nothing more than the basic information, including its relation to the Fibonacci sequence and its occurrence in nature.

      There were some things that I hadn’t heard about – the musical rendition of Recaman’s Sequence was a particularly pleasing find, and I highly recommend looking it up on YouTube if you read the book but didn’t bother going to check – and a few beloved ones, like Fermat’s Last Theorem, but otherwise it relied on the pop math that is so prevalent as to be commonplace now (See: P versus NP and its increasing ubiquity on TV shows of late).

      If the words Reimann’s Hypothesis, Srinivasa Ramanujan, or gambler’s fallacy ring even a distant bell, you will probably not find anything groundbreaking or new in this book.

      This is not to say that the book is without merit; for those who don’t know anything about math, I imagine this would be a great introduction to the practical, the theoretical, and the just plain fun aspects of mathematical theory. It helps as well that Alex Bellos is a charming writer. In one chapter, he explains with the glee of a child receiving a present a hundred-day experiment in which he charted the weight of baguettes every morning. His descriptions, particularly of some of the more eccentric people in the field, like Gregory and David Chudnovsky, are delightful. And he has a knack for sliding in humor at just the right moment, as when he is discussing the almost mythical lore of pi: “Pi has gone by this name only since 1706, when the Welshman William Jones introduced the symbol π in his book, the snappily titled, A New Introduction to the Mathematics, for the Use of some Friends who have neither Leisure, Convenience, nor, perhaps, Patience, to search into so many different Authors, and turn over so many tedious Volumes, as is unavoidably required to make but tolerable progress in the Mathematics” (111).

      His descriptions of the math are … less charming. He relates his experience meeting Martin Gardner, who explains that it was his own helplessness at anything more difficult than calculus that allowed him to write about it in such a way that even math-dullards could understand; Bellos clearly has no such problems. It is abundantly clear that he is startlingly intelligent, and writes clearly otherwise, but with the restrictions bound to someone who understands something intuitively. I have read other books that explained mathematical problems and theorems in ways that even I – definitely not a math genius – could understand, but the book had numerous instances where Bellos turned to the proofs, apparently assured that this was sufficient to explain. It was not. (Like Martin Gardner, I am similarly hopeless with anything after basic calculus).

      He also has a few snide comments that frankly surprised me, as he confessed his love of writing in the introduction. One such that managed to rankle was this gem: “The propositions of The Elements are true in perpetuity. They do not become less certain or indeed less relevant with time (which is why Euclid is still taught at schools and why Greek playwrights, poets and historians are not)” (57).

      A. They are, and B. If they weren’t, that would be indicative of a problem, not an indication of their lack of relevance in some kind of academic Darwinism. Or, if one prefers: 1. They are, and 2. If they weren’t… Seriously though, I don't know of anyone who escaped high school without having read at least The Odyssey and probably Oedipus Rex as well. I want to believe that this is sarcasm, but he sounds so sincere in this that I have a hard time convincing myself.

      It may sound as if I’m nitpicking, and I am, because truly, this book wasn’t bad. As a primer, it is well-written, with an endearing narrator, and just enough fun to make even the more boring math palatable. Thankfully, most of the math isn’t at all in need of spicing up – the discussion of Cantor’s explanation of the concept of larger/smaller infinities is quietly brilliant, and a treat to read in and of itself, and Bellos’s obvious excitement at its implications make it hard not to be equally swept up by the awesomeness of it all.
    • 3/5
      More interesting than the majority of maths books ever written, this contains some really thought provoking stuff for people like me who always resented maths, the sections on numeric bases and differences in cultural approaches particularly. The downside is the authors tendency to linger on certain points. The discussion on number sequences went on well after its point had been made.
    • 5/5
      an exillent app
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this book. It is very well written, covers how different cultures use maths and talks about the people who actually do maths for a living. It was nice to read a book about maths with such warmth and without the feeling that my brain was going to pop!
    • 4/5
      Here's Looking at Euclid is a collection of stories about math, from the development of number and counting systems all the way to transfinite numbers and hyperbolic spaces. Alex Bellos does an excellent job of explaining very difficult subjects in simpler terms. He includes many small side-stories that add to the richness of the text. While the illustrations are not numerous, they are key to explaining some topics and are very well executed. Above all, Bellos conveys his enthusiasm for math, which, if one is already inclined to like math, his enthusiasm encourages one to begin reading the many books he lists in the bibliography.While this book is terrific at explaining most topics to the non-mathematician, a few of the explanations do require some background in math to be fully understandable. Overall, this is a wonderful book! (Then again, I love math.)
    • 4/5
      There are many books that popularize mathematics by retelling improbable anecdotes about famous mathematicians or by proving counter-intuitive propositions. Few are as amusing, entertaining, or downright clever as Here’s Looking at Euclid, aptly subtitled "A Surprising Excursion through the Astonishing World of Math." This attention grabbing title caught my eye in Chaucer's Books in Santa Barbara, California. The book consists of a series of not very closely related mathematical topics, lucidly presented. As such, it lends itself to occasional sampling rather than being read straight through. I myself read it a few pages at a time over a period of a month and a half. It contains many interesting anecdotes, such as a chapter on a remarkable chimpanzee who can count up to nine and can identify the appropriate symbol for each of the first nine digits and put them in the correct order. She has significant problems with where the number zero fits in the order, however, even though she seems to know that zero mean no objects. In addition, there are chapters on randomness, interesting sequences or progressions, the decimal expansion of pi, hyperbolic space, and infinity, all of which have surprising properties that Bellos perspicuously explicates. Evaluation: This is a fun, breezy read that you do not need a Ph.D. in math to enjoy.
    • 5/5
      I heard about this book while listening to NPR (1 geek point). My ears always prick up when I hear about a math book (1 geek point). This book sounded particularly interesting since it was written by a guy whose previous book is about football (soccer in the states) (-1 geek point for knowing the is a difference between soccer and football). In addition the author is journalist so on my personal author rating system I usually find books written by journalist to be 10-15% better than book written by none journalists (1 geek point for having a personal author rating system). On my next trip to the book store I bought the book. I was please to discover the author had started with chapter 0, in addition it is about a world without numbers. (1 geek point for not thinking that is just a gimmick.)I read the book in three or four sittings, mildly disappointed there weren’t homework assignments (10 geek points for hoping for homework in a non-fiction book). The chapters are about 22 pages, about the length of a good newspaper column (see how that journalist as author rating system works out). There are interesting personal insights, (who knew weighing baggets was so fun.), great globetrotting romps tracing mathematical developments (sort of Jame Brukes’ “Connections” meets Keith Delvin’s Morning Edition guest spots, ( 20 geek points for getting that reference)) and great multi-cultural view points (from 1, 2, many counting to crocheting hyperbolic surfaces).The one thing missing was an explanation of the current Millennium Prize Problems. Maybe that is a planned sequel. So if you are one of those sick twisted souls who love math but weren’t able to following that love into full time profession (lucky bastards) you’ll like this book. If you are a Brazilian football fan go for it’s a quick book to read and you’ll learn stuff about gambling. (total of 33 geek points, i.e. not technical enough for hardcore, sort of geek beach reading. (yeah like geeks ever go to the beach.))
    • 4/5
      I wasn’t very good at maths at school. I found arithmetic easy, but geometry and algebra just did not click. I work in the computer industry and have developed an easy working relationship with maths at a fairly low level. All this does not mean I dislike math, on the contary, I am fascinated by mathematics and the strange worlds it opens up. I would love to be a whiz at maths.I found Alex Bellos’ book both interesting and frustrating in about equal measure. The book is really a series of connected essays arranged more-or-less chronologically, examining key developments in mathematics and using some of the more exotic byways of the subject to illustrate the underlying concepts. I found most of it easyish to follow and learned a lot about what mathematics is, how it works and how it can be used. I was hooked and have vowed to follow up my interest with at least a little research and hard work.Where I became a little frustrated is when Bellos identifies an ‘interesting mathematical property’ but never clearly shows the significance or underlying structure of it. For example, in the chapter addressing the Fibonacci numbers and the Golden Mean Bellos shows a number of interesting sequences and interrelationships where the Fibonacci sequence is found in various elements of other number sequences. But he never really explains if these are just coincidences or random outcomes from lots of numbers being processed, or if they illustrate some deeper structure. Is it that 1/89 (89 being a Fibonacci number) can be expressed as the sum of a series of decimal fractions that end in the Fibonacci numbers just a bit of razzle-dazzle or is something more fundamental going on?Perhaps having these reservations and asking these questions means that Bellos has hit the mark and entertained well enough to drive some ongoing thought and interest in the subject. Well done!