The grapes of math : how life reflects numbers and numbers reflect life

Description

From the bestselling author of Here’s Looking at Euclid, a dazzling new book that turns even the most complex math into a brilliantly entertaining narrative. From triangles, rotations and power laws, to cones, curves and the dreaded calculus, Alex takes you on a journey of mathematical discovery with his signature wit and limitless enthusiasm. He sifts through over 30,000 survey submissions to uncover the world’s favourite number, and meets a mathematician who looks for universes in his garage. He attends the World Mathematical Congress in India, and visits the engineer who designed the first roller-coaster loop. Get hooked on math as Alex delves deep into humankind’s turbulent relationship with numbers, and reveals how they have shaped the world we live in Content: Every number tells a story -- The long tail of the law -- Love triangles -- Coneheads -- Bring on the revolution -- All about e -- The positive power of negative thinking -- Professor calculus -- The titl of this chapter contains three erors -- Cell mates.