The Book of Numbers
PDF | English | 193 pages
The first we know of numbers is when we start learning to count. One,
two, buckle my shoe… Pretty soon we know the number of our age, the
number of the day we were born, the month, the year. Before long we’ve
learnt the numbers we like on the remote control, our friends’ telephone
numbers, the number of our favourite football player, how much pocket
money we’re owed and the cost of the things we want to buy… In the
space of a handful of years, our knowledge of numbers soars from one and
two to thousands and millions. And it goes on growing ad infinitum.
Numbers have a magical quality. Some people claim to see
certain numbers appearing everywhere they look and attach supernatural
power to it. In mathematics too, the way some numbers behave can seem
amazing. Even Pythagoras, the great Greek mathematician, attributed
mystical qualities to some of the numbers that captured his imagination.
In some cases, numbers have assumed cult status from their appearance in
popular culture, religion, mythology or historical events: 9/11, Catch-22,
Room 101, 666 – the number of the beast.
Amidst all of this it’s easy to forget that most of the numbers we use,
and the ways they are applied, are the invention of man. That there are
24 hours in a day, and 360 degrees in a circle, and that 24 divides into 360,
is not a miracle of nature. That said, much of the significance we attach to
numbers stems from our observation of natural fact: the number of fingers
on each hand; the number of days and nights that pass between full
moons; the number of planets visible to the naked eye.
This book is a tribute to the charisma of numbers. There are numbers
from nature, mathematics, science, religion, mythology, superstition, art,
history, technology… In an effort to apply some structure to this mind-
boggling subject, I have included every whole number from 0 to 100 (plus
a few notable imperfect numbers), and then picked out a selection of larger
numbers that should either be familiar to everyone, or relate to something
that is familiar. If I’ve missed out your favourite number, I apologize. This
is not a definitive list. How could it be? The choice is infinite.
THE ANCIENT GREEKS did
not recognize 0 as a number.
The people who mastered
geometry and calculated pi were
baffled by 0. As were the Romans.
In India, where the number
system we use today originated,
the Hindus had some concept of
it as a part of bigger numbers like
10 and 100, where it serves as a
place-holder to show that the
figure 1 represents 10s or 100s
rather than units.They wrote it as
a dot, which may have been
enlarged to a ring, to give us the
now familiar 0. An inscription
dated 876AD shows use of a 0
as we would recognize it today.
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