The Book of Numbers Corrected Edition

by John H. Conway (Author), Richard Guy (Author)

22 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0387979939

ISBN-10: 038797993X

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"...the great feature of the book is that anyone can read it without excessive head scratching...You'll find plenty here to keep you occupied, amused, and informed. Buy, dip in, wallow." -IAN STEWART, NEW SCIENTIST
"...a delightful look at numbers and their roles in everything from language to flowers to the imagination." -SCIENCE NEWS
"...a fun and fascinating tour of numerical topics and concepts. It will have readers contemplating ideas they might never have thought were understandable or even possible." -WISCONSIN BOOKWATCH
"This popularization of number theory looks like another classic." -LIBRARY JOURNAL

The Book of Numbers

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Product Details

Hardcover: 310 pages
Publisher: Copernicus; Corrected edition (March 16, 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 038797993X
ISBN-13: 978-0387979939
Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #277,343 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #29 in Books > Science & Math > Mathematics > Number Systems
- #72 in Books > Science & Math > Mathematics > Pure Mathematics > Number Theory
- #876 in Books > Science & Math > Mathematics > Applied > Probability & Statistics

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4.4 out of 5 stars

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Gets off to a strong start

BywiredweirdHALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWERon March 27, 2005

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Conway and Guy start this book with an enticing survey of how numbers pervade the English language, showing the hidden (or not-so-hidden) numerical roots of common words. They also mention other numbering systems, including the Roman numerals, Greek, Egyptian, and cuneiform Babylonian - numbers that persist in our 60-based measures of minutes and seconds, in both time and angle.

Next, they move into squares, triangular numbers, and many others with rich geometric meanings. Chapters 1 and 2, especially, create vivid images that bring many of their concepts to life. I had a bit of trouble finding ch.3's focus. It touches briefly combinatorics, a world in itself, and difference techniques. I found "Jackson's Fan" fascinating, but too terse for easy application to real problems. After this, the going gets a lot tougher, fast.

By ch 4, "Famous Families," the illustration is no longer as vivid as before. Ch. 6, on fractions and decimal expansions also held some interest - it touches on complexity in the decimal forms of fractions, and the numeric roots from which it springs. The section on continued fractions is only just enough to titillate without really enlightening. Discussion of imaginary numbers is OK, and offers some enjoyable insights. The section on quaternions, though, does a lot less to invite personal involvement and stir the imagination. Later sections of the book present readable surveys of their topics, but require a lot more form the reader in the way of determination and mathematical background.

If the whole book sustained the initial energy, it would have been an instant classic. The later parts of the book were clear, readable, and even enjoyable, but didn't match the breadth or vividness of the first half. I enjoyed this, but I may not come back to it.

//wiredweird

0Comment 39 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Delightful!!!

ByJames M. Cargalon September 8, 2000

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This is a delightful survey of numbers clearly aimed at as wide an audience as possible. However, as is always the case in such books the book is more formidable than it intends or than it looks. Still it is very friendly especially compared with, say, "Numbers" by Ebbinghays et al. The coverage is wide: primes, reals, Cayley numbers, Eisenstein numbers, polygonal numbers, catalan numbers, Stirling numbers of both types and of course Bell numbers. There are the cardinals and ordinals of Cantor as well as Conway's own surreal numbers. (And an earlier reviewer was correct about misprints and color problems.) I recommend this to anyone whose mathematical maturity is at least as great as basic calculus (and who is interested).

0Comment 29 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Superb but dangerous

ByA customeron January 10, 1997

Format: Hardcover

A personal but fascinating review of numbers: from Egyptian
fractions to surreal numbers; from numbers so large they cannot
be imagined (and barely be named) to ruler-and-compass; all prefaced by
a virtuoso etymologic riff.

Beautifully produced, engagingly written, full of new perspectives
on old material - and new material too. The book contains so
much disparate information that each reader will find
something in particular that he or she likes. I do not
think I have ever seen a popularization at once so interesting
to anyone from bright junior high-school student to a professional
mathematician.

I have two minor complaints. First, there are some misprints
(for example in the description of trisections), and in some of
the early diagrams the orange and the red tiles come out looking
the same. In view of the extraordinary complexity of the
production and in view of the overall visual appeal and
clarity of the presentation, these slight errors do not
detract from the impact.

The more serious problem has to do with the fact that the
book is so fascinating
that it can be a real time sink. I have personally lost many
hours pondering the big (and I mean /big/) numbers Conway
and Guy describe, for instance. The book is almost like a
CD-ROM game in that one can get completely lost in it for days.
It made me wistful, too, that I had not had this book when I was first
learning mathematics (also, it could use a few more references
to things like Graham's number and surreal asymptotics).
Not only that but, despite its fairly hefty price tag, I
find myself buying copies for friends - so it can use up
not only a lot of time but money too!

0Comment 20 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Too many topics, too little information

Byrsholmeson May 23, 2012

Format: Hardcover

I'm not sure why it took 17 years for me to catch up with John H. Conway and Richard Guy's The Book of Numbers. I don't even recall hearing about it until I came across it in a local library.

It is, I'm sorry to say, not as good as I'd hoped. They would have written a better book had they chosen about half as many topics, or written about twice as many pages. As it is, there's far too many steps left out, too much unexplained, too many terms undefined. To pick just one example, in the section "Lagrange's Numbers, Markov's Numbers, and Frieman's Number" in Chapter 7, the last paragraph is about the Lagrange spectrum, the Markov spectrum, and Frieman's number. One paragraph? It needed more. I would guess that people who already learned about these things once might read Conway and Guy's discussion, nod, and say, "Oh yes, I remember that." For me, who'd not encountered them before, the paragraph was opaque. There simply wasn't enough information conveyed to promote any understanding. Omitting that paragraph, or perhaps that entire section, would have been an improvement, if they didn't want to expand the discussion to a page or so.

There should have been better proofreading, as well. In the caption to Figure 10.8, to pick one of several problems I noticed, the fraction 6/14 should be 1/64.

It's a shame. Conway and Guy could have written a much better book had they not been in such a rush to get through so many subjects.

22 comments 14 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

(I've taken courses with him and find this book a nice guide to how he thinks

Conway is one of the preeminent mathematicians of our generation. This book is a must have. His approach is always fascinating and enlightening.Read more

Published 1 year ago by Moribund Alpaca

Awesome book of numbers!

I love this book! It does not, in any way, "dumb down" numbers for children. It is very thoughtful and well presented. I am excited to read this book aloud to my children.

Published on September 19, 2014 by scdweller

When it's good, it's very good

The sections at the beginning of the book are a sheer delight. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on figurative numbers, which shows how to get sums of powers of numbers by...Read more

Published on January 30, 2014 by Martin P. Cohen

Good book

There are fewer numbers than I was expecting, especially given the title, but it is still a very good read.

Published on April 3, 2013 by David

Welsh - could do better.

I don't suppose there are many sales to Welsh-speaking mathematicians but it's unfortunate
that the Welsh word for "three" is rendered as "toi". It's "tri".Read more

Published on February 9, 2011 by Stanhope

Interesting introduction to numbers

Fascinating overview of the many different types of numbers. It made me think, like a book of puzzles. I really like the geometrical interpretations in the early chapters.Read more

Published on October 13, 2010 by Giant Panda

Confusion! Poor Editing

Horrible - the beginning of Chapter 2 is a prime example of confusion both textually and graphically.

Published on March 28, 2009 by ReadySetGo

The Book of Pure Enjoyment

I own a lot of books on Mathematics and Mathematical topics. This book truly is my favorite. The color illustrations, the other drawings and diagrams make the topics very...Read more

Published on November 27, 2008 by R. H. Pratt

Heavier than I thought

I enjoyed reading this book very much. But I do not agree with the reviewers who say it does not require more than a highschool level in mathematics.
I have an M.Sc.

Published on March 12, 2008 by Evelien Snel

A Fascination with Numbers

This is a marvelous book written by two very distinquished mathematicians with a knack for teaching and fascinating their readers.Read more

Published on May 12, 2007 by Dr. Louis J. Petrillo

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The Book of Numbers Corrected Edition

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