1089 And All That: A Journey Into Mathematics

Description

David Acheson's extraordinary little book makes mathematics accessible to everyone. From very simple beginnings he takes us on a thrilling journey to some deep mathematical ideas. On the way, via Kepler and Newton, he explains what calculus really means, gives a brief history of pi, and even takes us to chaos theory and imaginary numbers. Every short chapter is carefully crafted to ensure that no one will get lost on the journey. Packed with puzzles and illustrated by world famous cartoonists, this is one of the most readable and imaginative books on mathematics ever written.

Reviews

Popular maths is not easy to do, but David Acheson has really achieved it with this pocket-sized gem of a book.

Table of contents

1. 1089 and All That; 2. "In Love with Geometrie"; 3. But ... that's Absurd ..; 4. The Trouble with Algebra; 5. The Heavens in Motion; 6. All Change!; 7. On Being as Small as Possible; 8. "Are We Nearly There?"; 9. A Brief History of pi; 10. Good Vibrations; 11. Great Mistakes; 12. What is the Secret of All Life?; 13. e=2.718 ..; 14. Chaos and Catastrophe; 15. Not Quite the Indian Rope Trick; 16. Real or Imaginary?