The Number Mysteries

Resumen del libro

From the author of 'The Music of the Primes' and 'Finding Moonshine' comes a short, lively book on five mathematical problems that just refuse be solved -- and on how many everyday problems can be solved by maths. Every time we download a song from Itunes, take a flight across the Atlantic or talk on our mobile phones, we are relying on great mathematical inventions. Maths may fail to provide answers to various of its own problems, but it can provide answers to problems that don't seem to be its own -- how prime numbers are the key to Real Madrid's success, to secrets on the Internet and to the survival of insects in the forests of North America.

In 'The Number Mysteries', Marcus du Sautoy explains how to fake a Jackson Pollock; how to work out whether or not the universe has a hole in the middle of it; how to make the world's roundest football. He shows us how to see shapes in four dimensions -- and how maths makes you a better gambler. He tells us about the quest to predict the future -- from the flight of asteroids to an impending storm, from bending a ball like Beckham to predicting population growth.

It's a book to dip in to; a book to challenge and puzzle -- and a book that gives us answers

Biografía del autor

Marcus du Sautoy (1965) estudió en la Universidad de Oxford, donde es actualmente catedrático de matemáticas. Ha sido también profesor invitado en el Collège de France y la École Normale Supérieure de París, en el Max Planck Institut de Bonn, la Universidad Hebrea de Jerusalén y la Universidad Nacional Australiana en Canberra. En 2001, ganó el premio Berwick de la London Mathematical Society. Colabora, con éxito enorme, en la televisión con programas de divulgación matemática, así como en la prensa escrita. En Acantilado han aparecido La música de los números primos (2007), Simetría (2009) y Los misterios de los números (2012).