Alex's Adventures in Numberland

The Sunday Times bestseller
Shortlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize

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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.