The Penguin Book of Curious and Interesting Numbers: Revised Edition (Penguin Press Science) (Paperback)

~ David Wells (Author)
Key Phrases: centred hexagonal number, pandigital square, multiplicative persistence, Golden Ratio, Scripta Mathematica, Martin Gardner (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Revised with nearly 200 new entries, this dictionary contains all the information that anyone ever wanted to know about numbers--from minus one and its square root to cyclic, weird, perfect, untouchable and lucky numbers to Pascal's triangle and the Syracuse algorithm to numbers so large they boggle the imagination.

About the Author

DAVID WELLS has written extensively on problems and popular mathematics, and many of his titles are available in Penguin. He is involved in education through writing and research, and lives in this country.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Rev Sub edition (May 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140261494
• ISBN-13: 978-0140261493
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #250,447 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No recreational mathematician should be without it, December 10, 2000

By	Primoz Peterlin (Ljubljana, Slovenia) - See all my reviews

In the foreword to G.H. Hardy's book A Mathematician's Apology, C.P. Snow tells an anecdote about Hardy and his collaborator Srinavasa Ramanujan. Hardy, perhaps the greatest number theorist of 20th century, took a taxi from London to the hospital at Putney where Ramanujan was dying of tuberculosis, Hardy noticed its number, 1729. Always inept about introducing a conversation, he entered the room where Ramanujan was lying in bed and, with scarcely a hello, blurted out his opinion about the taxi-cab number. It was, he declared, "rather a dull number," adding that he hoped that wasn't a bad omen. "No, Hardy! No, Hardy," said Ramanujan, "it is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."

Usually it takes a great deal of insight as well as considerable mathematical training to discover a yet unknown properties of some number. Only recognizing the beauty of a number pattern is much easier, though, especially with a friendly book like this one on hand. Wells, a long-time mathematics popularizer, has collected over 1000 numbers he considers interesting. Each of them is given a short explanation, often accompanied with a bibliographic reference. Celebrities among the numbers, like i, e or Pi, are given a more comprehensive treatment. Included are also several sequences, like Fibonacci's, Mersenne's, Fermat's, Carmichael's or Kaprekar's, each accompanied with its explanation. So are cyclic, amicable, untouchable or lucky numbers, and many more sequences you probably didn't know about.

While Wells' dictionary certainly gives the impression of a well-researched work, the list of numbers is by no means exhaustive. Anyone familiar with chaos theory will notice the absence of Feigenbaum constant; prime hunters would probably be interested in discussion on Woodall primes, Sophie-Germain primes, or Proth primes. But they are better off with Paulo Ribenboim's book on primes, anyway, while Wells' book, with its easily understandable explanations and accessible price is probably more suited for the "recreational mathematics" audience.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Googolplex good reasons why read this book!, April 29, 1999

By	Itamar Ronen (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Loaded with information, light-hearted and extremely well written! The book is so enjoyable that whenever you get near it you feel like grabbing it and find the vices and virtues of yet another number. And between one number and the next, one meets an entire gallery of mathematicians, mathematical terms, unsolved problems, great achievements and colossal mistakes... It's a jewel of a book - I strongly reccomend it.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for Middle and High School Students, June 15, 2000

By	Gary the blues man "nvarea" (Sunderland, MA USA) - See all my reviews

A great supplemental tool for teachers! I had terrific fun with my 6th grade math students when reading them certain passages in this book. Many of the topics covered, such as factorials, hexidecimals, triangular numbers, pi, primes, etc. are not generally covered in the middle school very well or at all, and this book serves as a great launching tool for discussions that kids enjoy and think about long after class is over. Also, many topics go in depth and will challenge even the best high school math students and take them in many directions that traditional math education does not.