"How brilliant of Michael Brooks to be able to reignite my almost-forgotten childhood love of mathematics. Written with beauty, style, and care for the history as well as for the science. A tour de force.” —Angela Saini, author of Superior: the return of race science
“Michael Brooks has a rare gift for making science come to life, and in this book he is at his best, fusing mathematics with storytelling as he takes us on an exhilarating sweep through human history.” —Dan Jones, New York Times bestselling historian
“In this thrilling, colourful, and deeply researched book, Michael Brooks tells the epic story of how mathematics has driven human progress… transforming mathematics from dry equations into a gripping drama... inspiring, fun, and utterly human.” —Jo Marchant, author of The Human Cosmos
Bestselling science writer Michael Brooks takes us on a fascinating journey through the history of civilisation, as he explains why maths is fundamental to our understanding of the world.
1, 2, 3 … ? The untrained brain isn't wired for maths; beyond the number 3, it just sees 'more'. So why bother learning it at all?
You might remember studying geometry, calculus, and algebra at school, but you probably didn't realise - or weren't taught - that these are the roots of art, architecture, government, and almost every other aspect of our civilisation. The mathematics of triangles enabled explorers to travel far across the seas and astronomers to map the heavens. Calculus won the Allies the Second World War and halted the HIV epidemic. And imaginary numbers, it turns out, are essential to the realities of twenty-first-century life.
From ancient Egyptian priests to the Apollo astronauts, and Babylonian tax collectors to juggling robots, join Michael Brooks and his extraordinarily eccentric cast of characters in discovering how maths shaped the world around you.
