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It All Adds Up: The Story of People and Mathematics

Author: Mickael Launay.

It All Adds Up: The Story of People and Mathematics

Author: Mickael Launay.

$5.98
Item #: D03242
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 2019
Publisher: William Collins
ISBN: 9780008283971
From our ability to calculate the passing of time to the algorithms that control computers, numbers are everywhere; they are so indispensable that we forget how fundamental they are to our way of life. Mixing history and anecdotes from around the world, Mickaël Launay shows what art can reveal about geometry, how Babylonian scholars developed one of the... More
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From our ability to calculate the passing of time to the algorithms that control computers, numbers are everywhere; they are so indispensable that we forget how fundamental they are to our way of life. Mixing history and anecdotes from around the world, Mickaël Launay shows what art can reveal about geometry, how Babylonian scholars developed one of the first complex written languages, and how "Arabic" numbers were adopted from India. With infectious enthusiasm, Launay also tells the story of how mapping the trajectory of an eclipse has helped to trace the precise day of one of the oldest battles in history, how the course of the modern-day Greenwich Meridian was established, and why negative numbers took so long to catch on.


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