| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
This is one of the best-written popular science books to have come this way for quite a while... Seife has a neat turn of phrase, an easy yet respectful familiarity with his subject that helps the maths slip down easily. --Nicholas Lezard, 'The Guardian'
A witty but lucid account... A must for armchair logicians. --'BBC Focus'
A breathless tour of the dangerous idea of zero. --'New Scientist'
A witty but lucid account... A must for armchair logicians. --'BBC Focus'
A breathless tour of the dangerous idea of zero. --'New Scientist'
'Focus', July 2003
a witty but lucid account... A must for armchair logicians.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Zero and infinity,
By Mikko Saari (Tampere, Finland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea (Paperback)
Babylonians invented it, Indians worshipped it, Greeks abhorred it. Zero has been a problematic number for a long time. European mathematicians followed Greek footsteps, until they finally realized how important thing zero was for advanced mathematics.Seife presents us the history of zero and its sister concept infinity, not only in mathematics, but also in physics and quantum mechanics. Zero is an entertaining book, if a bit light. For quick popular science entertainment purposes it's a good choice. (Review based on the Finnish translation.)
42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review for Zero:the Biography of a Dangerous Idea,
By A Customer
This review is from: Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea (Paperback)
This book was absolutely wonderful, it delves into the history of mathematics, as far back as the creation of numbers themselves. It looks at the contribution that the Greeks, Babylonians and Hindus made to mathematics, and how religion had restricted the development of mathematics. The book was written very well, it felt like a story book, rather than a factual book. I recommend this book for everyone with an interest in Maths, you do not need to be a mathematician to enjoy this book.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
one of the best maths books around,
By marthiemoo (bristol, uk) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea (Paperback)
Being an undergraduate philosopher I've had to read a lot of maths books, and this is by far the best. It's true that you don't need much maths background to understand it, but it's also highly enjoyable for those with a lot of maths or physics knowledge - it links up and explains general assumptions in a way which seems never to occur to most teachers of sciences courses. The proof of 0=1 (and, extrapolating, that winston churchill = a carrot) is excellent and well worth committing to memory just to freak out any maths nerds one knows. Also worth a go is the step-by-step guide to making your own wormhole time machine (Step 1: Make a small wormhole, and attach one end to something really heavy). Really excellent, buy everyone you know a copy for christmas.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Medical, Legal & Social Sciences > Philosophy
- Books > Biography > Science, Mathematics & Technology > Science
- Books > History > Other Historical Subjects > History of Science
- Books > Science & Nature > Mathematics > History of Mathematics
- Books > Science & Nature > Mathematics > Philosophy of Mathematics
- Books > Science & Nature > Mathematics > Popular Maths
- Books > Science & Nature > Popular Science > Maths
- Books > Scientific, Technical & Medical
- Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Philosophy
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
