By working with correspondences between infinite sets he characterized some infinite sets as countable (aleph), and others as non-countable (beth).

And that brings us to the final chapter, appropriately about infinity, a concept discussed throughout the book--especially in the bits on counting and number sequencing--but thoroughly analysed from a mathematical and philosophical standpoint here. Instead, he effortlessly reveals the truth of just how fascinating, how human, how intensely interesting this subject (and its history) really is. Along the way, he relates amusing stories involving eccentric people and their often mundane means--origami, sponges, crochet--of giving physical shape to the downright unfathomable. Moreover, his goal is not to instruct, any more than the goal of THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS is a manual on chess-playing. The chapter on Vedic Mathematics was insightful, but I still do not see how this method can be considered easier than the traditional method I was taught.Statistics therefore became important for states, for economists, and to discover and understand climate change. I did struggle with some of the ideas but very often when I asked my husband to explain I found that the author explained the whole thing in the following paragraph. There are scores of textbooks about the history of mathematics too, many of which could tell you roughly the same things that Bellos's book covers. 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.

After studying mathematics and philosophy at university I joined the Evening Argus in Brighton as a trainee reporter. Mathematicians have explored ever more abstract worlds and geometries, floating in dimensions that may or may not exist and finding symmetries and patterns in hard-to-imagine shapes. In my opinion it was a more appropriate title, mirroring some of the spirit of Lewis Carroll's verbal playfulness. The chapter uses maths to confirm that there are a few clever clogs who can improve gambling odds but the rest of us are easy prey to owners of casinos whose only redeeming quality is that they are as stupid as the rest of us in understanding how probability theory works and must therefore put their faith in the quants they employ, much like the purchasers of derivatives products. If you're in the former camp, it might be difficult to understand how anyone could be interested or impassioned by something so seemingly dry and difficult.Logarithms exposed the limitations of a brain that can memorise useless facts but could not hope to make the abstract concrete in a month of infinite Sundays. There have been books about the history of mathematics before and, I hope, there will be many more in the future. The record for pi memorisation whilst juggling is held by Mats Bergsten (Sweden) who has recited 9778 digits while juggling three balls. If nothing, you should read this book to learn about an encyclopedia of sequences (that also converts them into music), to see the unbelievable impact of the invention of the electronic calculator, to imagine a world of rivalries between human equation solvers and where human calculators would indulge in math duels! The style is laced with humour, but at all times, the star of the show is mathematics Ian Stewart, Prospect It is to be hoped that the uncountable delights of Bellos’s book, its verve and feeling for mathematics, convey its enchantments to a new generation.