Tuesday, June 18, 2013

From Zero to Ten: The Story of Numbers by Vivian French & Ross Collins


I was pleased to find this book to add to my collection of maths-related books and dictionaries, and I really enjoyed reading it too. It is not what I would call a taxing book and it delivers some thought-provoking information on how our number system developed. This book could comfortably be read in a night, or a couple of silent  reading sessions at school, and is very enlightening and entertaining. It is humorous and the illustrations are lively and quirky. It talks about the counting system used by the Incas, the Mayans,  the Egyptians, the Indians, the Arabs, the Romans, the Babylonians. It also focuses on how measurements evolved, and the section on "Using our Bodies to Measure" highlighting Leonardo da Vinci's theorie will have uour mind boggling.. And what are good and bad numbers? What are lucky and magic numbers? It also traces the history of mankind's attempts to measure time. Do you have time to find out about the story of numbers?

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