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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.
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.
Are you smarter than a Singaporean ten-year-old? Can you beat Sherlock Holmes? If you think the answer is yes - I challenge you to solve my problems. Here are 125 of the world's best brainteasers from the last two millennia, taking us from ancient China to medieval Europe, Victorian England to modern-day Japan, with stories of espionage, mathematical breakthroughs and puzzling rivalries along the way. Pit your wits against logic puzzles and kinship riddles, pangrams and river-crossing conundrums. Some solutions rely on a touch of cunning, others call for creativity, others need mercilessly logical thought. Some can only be solved be 2 per cent of the population. All are guaranteed to sharpen your mind. Let's get puzzling!
Bestselling author of Alex's Adventures in Numberland joins the meditative colouring book craze with this mathematical colouring book.
Thought you had it bad? In this book, you will be: Imprisoned by a sadistic logician. Challenged to raise dogs from the dead. Trapped on a burning island. And much more besides . . . Everything is at stake in this compendium of more than 150 ingenious puzzles, selected to reveal the wonderful diversity of brainteasers that have confounded and intrigued solvers for the last thousand years. You'll need to pit your wits against probability problems, wrestle with wordplay, grapple with geometry and scrabble for survival. Along the way you will discover stories of whip-smart thinkers, eccentric novelists and a poodle with allegedly supernatural powers. You will absorb fascinating and important mathematical ideas. Some solutions will rely on ingenuity, some will challenge you to spot hidden patterns, others call for extreme rationality. All will surprise, entertain and stretch your brain. Will you make it out with your puzzling pride intact?
"A coloring book that reveals math's hidden beauty and contemplative power as never before with 78 coloring designs and games that explore symmetry, fractals, tessellations, randomness, and more."--
Too often math gets a bad rap, characterized as dry and difficult. But, Alex Bellos says, "math can be inspiring and brilliantly creative. Mathematical thought is one of the great achievements of the human race, and arguably the foundation of all human progress. The world of mathematics is a remarkable place." Bellos has traveled all around the globe and has plunged into history to uncover fascinating stories of mathematical achievement, from the breakthroughs of Euclid, the greatest mathematician of all time, to the creations of the Zen master of origami, one of the hottest areas of mathematical work today. Taking us into the wilds of the Amazon, he tells the story of a tribe there who can ...
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Through the lens of Brazil's trademark sport, reporter Alex Bellos brings us a fascinating portrait of Brazilian identity. When Brazil won the World Cup in 2002, the secret was out: the Brazilian soccer team is one of the modern wonders of the world. In this fascinating portrait of Brazilian identity, Alex Bellos brings to life not just a sport, but an entire country. With an unerring eye for a good story and a marvelous ear for the voices of the people he meets, Alex Bellos uncovers what Ronaldo called the "true truth" about Brazilian soccer.
Get young fans dreaming big with this collection of fifty inspirational lives from the world of football. What made Pele the greatest player of all time? How did Nadia Nadim flee from Afghanistan and end up playing for Manchester City? Who was the Liverpool player who invented the world's most popular football boot? This collection of fifty biographies brings together the incredible true stories of the game's greatest legends who changed the world of football. Empowering and inspirational, this is the perfect book to get young fans dreaming big both on and off the pitch ...