Thinking in Numbers: How Maths Illuminates Our Lives

Daniel Tammet

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This is the book that Daniel Tammet was born to write. In Tammet's world, numbers are beautiful and mathematics illuminates our lives and minds. Using anecdotes and everyday examples, Tammet allows us to share his unique insights and delight in the way numbers, fractions and equations underpin all our lives.

Inspired by the complexity of snowflakes, Anne Boleyn's sixth finger or his mother's unpredictable behaviour, Tammet explores questions such as why time seems to speed up as we age, whether there is such a thing as an average person and how we can make sense of those we love.

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Praise for Thinking in Numbers: How Maths Illuminates Our Lives

  • Thinking in Numbers is unprecedented: a pitch-perfect duet between mathematics and literature ... Mathematics, Tammet says, is illimitable. It is a language through which the human imagination expresses itself. Presumably this means mathematics has, or deserves, a literature. In Tammet, it already has a laureate. - New ScientistA collection of essays on subjects as diverse as Shakespeare and Tolstoy, a rumination on snow and another on chess, as well as a fantastically nuanced piece about his mother. It is a collection which showcases Tammet's extraordinary talent . . . a writer of unique capabilities. - Scotsman MagazineAn interesting and often beautiful approach: Tammet writes well... and his love of numbers shines from the page... Tammet's discussion of big numbers is fascinating. - Daily TelegraphTammet's choice of subjects is personal, and wonderfully eclectic... What lifts Tammet's entertaining collection above the ordinary are the often surprising links that he sees, explores and explains. - Sunday TelegraphExplores the 'what if' of maths and links it with literature and life. He is an exhilarating thinker, an exciting writer, and looks at the world with an eclectic, quizzical eye. - Saga magazineTammet is an accomplished writer with a prose style akin to a warm embrace... scintillating ... enlightens and entertains in (approximately) equal measure. - Daily ExpressWhen he talks about his own extreme skills, such as his feat of pi memorisation, the book comes alive. - BBC FocusDaniel Tammet's unique take on the world will prove that life - not just classroom maths - is more than just a numbers game. - Gay Times

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Daniel Tammet

Daniel Tammet

Formerly an autistic child whose mother tongue was numbers, Daniel Tammet is the author of a rich and widely acclaimed body of work, including memoirs, essays, literary reportage, poetry and fiction. Born on a Blue Day (2006) and Every Word is a Bird We Teach to Sing (2017) were named by Booklist magazine among the editors' annual selections. Thinking in Numbers (2012) was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. Tammet's books have been translated into thirty languages. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

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