1089 and All That : A Journey into Mathematics

Pure mathematical gold, David Acheson's enthralling and insightful volume is brimful of nuggets that will make mathematics accessible to everyone. From deceptively simple beginnings, the thrilling journey takes the reader all the way through to some deep mathematical ideas, via Kepler and Newton, explaining what calculus really means, and even giving a brief history of pi. Every short page is carefully crafted to ensure no one will be lost along the way and the final destination is possibly the most beautiful and surprising mathematical statement in history. Packed with puzzles and illustrated with the help of world famous cartoonists, before the reader even notices they'll know more about chaos theory and imaginary numbers than they ever expected.