Alex's Adventures in Numberland

A tenth anniversary edition of the iconic book about the wonderful world of maths

Sunday Times bestseller | Shortlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize

The world of maths can seem mind-boggling, irrelevant and, let's face it, boring. This groundbreaking book reclaims maths from the geeks. Mathematical ideas underpin just about everything in our lives: from the surprising geometry of the 50p piece to how probability can help you win in any casino. In search of weird and wonderful mathematical phenomena, Alex Bellos travels across the globe and meets the world's fastest mental calculators in Germany and a startlingly numerate chimpanzee in Japan. Packed with fascinating, eye-opening anecdotes, Alex's Adventures in Numberland is an exhilarating cocktail of history, reportage and mathematical proofs that will leave you awestruck.

This anniversary edition is fully revised and updated.

Original and highly entertaining ― Sunday Times

Will leave you hooked on numbers ― Daily Telegraph

A page turner about humanity's strange, never easy and, above all, never dull relationship with numbers ― New Scientist

Outstanding ... The style is laced with humour, but at all times, the star of the show is mathematics ― Ian Stewart, Prospect

If there was one book that was going to be compulsory for the nation to read it would be this one -- Evan Davies

A magical mystery tour . . . Philosophy, religion, magic, history and basic sheep-counting are gather together in Bellos's bag of numbers ― The Times

Revealing and insightful ― Independent

A wholly original, beautifully written book about mathematics that does its subject justice but is so widely accessible that it will please everyone regardless of their numeracy ― New Scientist

An entertaining and accessible account of how maths underpins our lives. Maths will never appear so forbidding again ― TES

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 ― Times Literary Supplement

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