Number Story

Peter Higgins is a Professor of Mathematics at Essex University and inventor of Circular Sudoku. His previous books on mathematics include Mathematics for the Curious, Mathematics for the Imagination, and Nets, Puzzles and Postmen: An Exploration of Mathematical Connections.

Preface; The First Numbers; Discovering Numbers; Some Number Tricks; Some Tricky Numbers; Some Useful Numbers; On the Trail of New Numbers; Glimpses of Infinity; Applications of Number: Chance; The Complex History of the Imaginary; From Imaginary to Complex; The Number Line Under the Miscroscope; Applications of Number: Codes and Public Key Cryptography; For Connoisseurs; Further Reading.- Index

From the reviews:"The target reader of this book is a senior high school student. It is well suited to such an audience; indeed, it is exactly the sort of work I would myself have devoured some 50+ years ago. … The different topics treated are all described exactly and succinctly." (Michael A. B. Deakin, Mathematical Reviews, Issue 2008 j)“The author gives a history of the development of numbers including the natural numbers, the rational numbers, the real numbers and the complex numbers. The text is written at a level appropriate for any educated person. Throughout the text the reasons for the development of various numbers are given along with a historical view of the intuitive struggles with these new ideas.” (Steven T. Dougherty, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1188, 2010)