- Paperback: 236 pages
- Publisher: Prestel; illustrated edition edition (30 Sep 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 3791340670
- ISBN-13: 978-3791340678
- Product Dimensions: 18.6 x 11.8 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 518,493 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Reader from Haifa, Israel - 13 October 1998
First of allow me to congratulate you on a most inspiring book ... and thank you... for the book you have wrote.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader's comment from architect at New Haven - September 1998
Thanks so much for the wonderful book - mysterious and lucid and a great telling of this fantastic adventure.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This little book is the story of Enjil, a boy on a journey. He takes us on his adventure, not through space but through that which articulates both time and space - mathematics. As the late Professor Brainard pointed out, the problem many have with mathematics is not its difficulty, but its simplicity. It's too simple to grasp, and yet profound in its simplicity! Instead of building wondrous edifices with mathematics, Enjil looks with clear, open eyes behind the foundations of number, the integers - and finds the number nine a wondrous lode. This journey takes him to the ancient world of myths, and to the magic world of Mandalas, Pascal's triangle and the Golden Section. Moreover, the book provides just a few short steps into the extraordinary world that Enjil finds. The author, Cecil Balmond, both explicitly and implicitly leaves much to be uncovered by the reader. For example, he leaves the connection between Pascal's Triangle and the Golden Section - the Fibonacci Series - unstated, but provides the old (Chinese) version of Pascal's triangle, where the Fibonacci Series is much more visible than in the modern format. All one has to do is go down the Chinese (right-angled) triangle at an angle of 45 degrees, and there it is! It is a book to return to, and savour - the sort I wish that I had been given when still a boy: one which presents the world of mathematics as one of delight, rather than the drudge it appears to be when presented by less gifted communicators than Mr Balmond. Buy it for your child, especially if your child is gifted like Enjil, for exactly the same reason as you would have bought the child a train set years before. To play with it yourself!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Coming from Cecil Balmond, one of the most famous engineers around, I was expecting a book on mathematical theory which would provide some interesting and challenging reading. What I got was far from it...
The theory in this book is based on the "sigma code" of a number, a property which Cecil defines as the sum of the digits which make up the number. It is common knowledge (and can be easily proven) that any number who's digits add up to nine is a multiple of nine, so when this book makes the "discovery" that "the sum of any two numbers who's sigma values are 9 also has a sigma value of 9", it is basically saying "add any two multiples of nine and you get a multiple of 9" - a rather trivial statement.
This book continues to take these revolutionary statements ("the sigma value of a prime number is never 9" [clearly - otherwise it would be a multiple of 9!]). It becomes rather repetitive and obvious, with a background storey of a boy who first discovered these "magical properties" of the number 9.
Not recommended for anyone who has any mathematical education or simply thinks about what these "extraordinary properties" actually are.
The theory in this book is based on the "sigma code" of a number, a property which Cecil defines as the sum of the digits which make up the number. It is common knowledge (and can be easily proven) that any number who's digits add up to nine is a multiple of nine, so when this book makes the "discovery" that "the sum of any two numbers who's sigma values are 9 also has a sigma value of 9", it is basically saying "add any two multiples of nine and you get a multiple of 9" - a rather trivial statement.
This book continues to take these revolutionary statements ("the sigma value of a prime number is never 9" [clearly - otherwise it would be a multiple of 9!]). It becomes rather repetitive and obvious, with a background storey of a boy who first discovered these "magical properties" of the number 9.
Not recommended for anyone who has any mathematical education or simply thinks about what these "extraordinary properties" actually are.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
What a beautiful little book. This is how I would have liked learning maths at school. If teachers could find a way of engaging children in looking at the "elegance" of numbers and their patterns, every child would want to be a mathematician. All "numerophobes" should read this and be enchanted by the quest of a young boy to prove himself to his teachers and the way you will fall in love with the number 9! I urge this to be on the national curriculum.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Disappointed
As a fellow engineer i was looking forward to gaining an insight into Balmonds mind through this book. What I found left me feeling cheated. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Linc
Brilliant
It captured the spiritual as well as the mathematical. A wonderful little read - for those who have an interest in what lies beyond numbers. A most unusual, charming book.
Published on 8 Dec 2000
A great train ride!
This little book is the story of Enjil, a boy on a journey. He takes us on his adventure, not through space but through that which articulates both time and space - mathematics. Read more
Published on 15 April 1999
Nine as a magical number.
I was overjoyed to find your book in my local bookshop yesterday. I have been fascinated with the same number for many years. Read more
Published on 16 Jan 1999
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