This is yet another concept with which I struggled, this time as a university student in 1974, because the idea of anything normal in a world characterised by Vietnam, Watergate and the Bay City Rollers could only be, in the words of Spiro T.

Alex explains the surprising geometry of the 50p piece, and the strategy of how best to gamble it in a casino. When I saw this book on one of my frequent browses I thought that sounds right up my street so bought it (it had good reviews). Bellos's promised excursion begins with the invention of zero, a number so basic to all calculations that it is easy to forget that it needed to be invented.

I joined the Guardian in 1994 as a reporter and in 1998 moved to Rio de Janeiro, where I spent five years as the paper’s South America correspondent. The discussion of the Hilbert Hotel, Cantor and infinity was very difficult to grasp but I imagine I am not the only one. Absolutely loved it, it is a romp through the history of maths in bite sized chunks which investigate certain aspects, e. It is not included in promotions available to our main range products, as stated in our terms of service.

Alex Bellos attempts to engage the general public in mathematics by describing maths in a way that anyone can understand. In the 1980s, presumably with the help of comupters, the Chudnovsky brothers developed an even more ferocious formula (p165). In this richly entertaining and accessible book, Alex Bellos explodes the myth that maths is best left to the geeks, and demonstrates the remarkable ways it's linked to our everyday lives. I have a degree in mathematics, but there were many things in the book that were new to me, and some that made my jaw drop. He used a mnemonic technique, assigning syllables to each number from 0 to 9 and then translating pi's decimals into words, which in turn formed sentences.When he was the Guardian's correspondent in South America he wrote Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life, a look at contemporary Brazil seen through soccer.