Overview

Numbers are integral to our everyday lives and factor into almost everything we do. In this Very Short Introduction, Peter M. Higgins, a renowned popular-science writer, unravels the world of numbers, demonstrating its richness and providing an overview of all the number types that feature in modern science and mathematics. Indeed, Higgins paints a crystal-clear picture of the number world, showing how the modern number system matured over many centuries, and introducing key concepts such as integers, fractions, real and imaginary numbers, and complex numbers. Higgins sheds light on such fascinating topics as the series of primes, describing how primes are now used to encrypt confidential data on the internet. He also explores the infinite nature of number collections and explains how the so-called real numbers knit together to form the continuum of the number line. Written in the fashion of Higgins' highly popular science paperbacks, Numbers accurately explains the nature of numbers and how so-called complex numbers and number systems are used in calculations that arise in real problems.

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9798200775491

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Peter M. Higgins is a professor in pure mathematics at the University of Essex. He is the inventor of the Circular Sudoku puzzle type that now features in numerous newspapers, magazines, and computer games. He has written extensively on the subject of mathematics, including Numbers: A Very Short Introduction and Nets, Puzzles, and Postmen, which won the 2012 Premio Peano prize for the best book on mathematics, published in Italian. British audiobook narrator and AudioFile Earphones Award winner Nigel Patterson has many credits as a stage, screen, and voice-over actor that influence his powerful characterization across a broad range of genres. AudioFile commented his keen ear and impeccable diction give insights into the prevailing attitudes of the period . . . his wholly credible characters stay with you long after you unplug. A graduate linguist of the University of Oxford, he is fluent in French and Spanish, has lived and worked in the U.S. for fifteen years, and knows many different accents and dialects from around the world.

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