The grapes of math

337 pages

English language

Published Dec. 30, 2014 by Doubleday Canada.

ISBN:: 978-0-385-67180-4
OCLC Number:: 859028099

(1 review)

"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"--

2 editions

Thom reviewed The grapes of math by Alex Bellos

Review of 'The grapes of math' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Really enjoyed this author's previous book, [b:Here's Looking at Euclid: A Surprising Excursion Through the Astonishing World of Math|7901962|Here's Looking at Euclid A Surprising Excursion Through the Astonishing World of Math|Alex Bellos|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1433491650s/7901962.jpg|11157611], which was a lot of fun to read and very accessible to the math-challenged. This book has about the same amount of humor but dives a little deeper into complicated math.

Really enjoyed the sections on triangles, e, and i, the latter including the Mandelbrot set. I believe the author went a little too far into cones, and the chapter topics as a whole feel more scattered than the previous book. Good, but not great.

Subjects

Number concept
Numeracy
Rational Numbers
Social aspects
Concept de nombre
Numératie
Nombres rationnels
Aspect social