Review of `The book of numbers: from zero to infinity, an entertaining list of every number that counts' [Hardcover], by Tim Glynne-Jones, published in Edison, New Jersey, by Chartwell Books, Incorporated in 2008.
Reviewer: Dr W. P. Palmer
This is a nicely produced book, 192...
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Review of `The book of numbers: from zero to infinity, an entertaining list of every number that counts' [Hardcover], by Tim Glynne-Jones, published in Edison, New Jersey, by Chartwell Books, Incorporated in 2008.
Reviewer: Dr W. P. Palmer
This is a nicely produced book, 192 pages long and well illustrated, which gives the reader the opportunity to dip into information about numbers. I have found much of interest, but it is not the sort of book that inspires one to read page by page from zero to infinity. Each number between one and one hundred plus about another thirty five selected numbers up to infinity has varying amounts of information about it. Sometimes there are just couple of lines about a number and sometimes there are a couple of pages.
Additionally there are double pages about each of the continents except Antarctica. Why? It is all very idiosyncratic! The number 55 is evidently of interest because there were 55 countries in the African continent. Unfortunately for the author, a new country, Southern Sudan, has been created since the publication of the book, which means this is no longer accurate information relating to number 55.
The square root of two, the golden number and pi are mathematical constants and get a mention, but the important mathematical constant, Euler's number e, with an approximate value of 2.71828 is omitted. The Avogadro number is included amongst the large numbers, but there are many other physical constants unmentioned, such as the gravitational constant, Planck's constant etc, that are equally important to scientists.
Strangely in a book about number, much of the information is related to language, as there is much emphasis on word derivation and meaning. The book is rather like the old game of `word association' where in this case the author is asked "what words do you associate with a particular number?". The book is the author's answer to this question. Overall it is good fun, if not taken too seriously!
BILL PALMER
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