Ian Stewart, author of the bestselling
Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities, presents a new and magical mix of games, puzzles, paradoxes, brainteasers, and riddles. He mingles these with forays into ancient and modern mathematical thought, appallingly hilarious mathematical jokes, and enquiries into the great mathematical challenges of the present and past. Amongst a host of arcane and astonishing facts about every kind of number from irrational or imaginary to complex or cuneiform, we find out: how to organise chaos; how matter balances anti-matter; how to turn a sphere inside out (without creasing it…); why you can’t comb a hairy ball; how to calculate pi by observing the stars. And we get some tantalising glimpses of the maths of life and the universe.Mind-stretching, enlightening and endlessly amusing, Professor Stewart’s new entertainment will stimulate, delight, and enthral.
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Ian Stewart is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics atthe University of Warwick and the author of the bestseller Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities.His recent books include Do Dice Play God?, Significant Figures, Professor Stewart’s Incredible Numbers, Seventeen Equations that Changed the World, Professor Stewart’s Casebook of Mathematical Mysteries and Calculating the Cosmos.He is a Fellow of the Royal Society.