THERE are children in Tokyo, trained in after-school abacus clubs, who can sum up to 30 large numbers using only the mental image of an abacus, and do it faster than someone with an electronic calculator. And there’s a mathematician in New York whose intricate crocheting has allowed her colleagues to visualise various surfaces in hyperbolic space for the first time. These are some of the delightful characters that populate Alex’s Adventures in Numberland.
As well as describing his interactions with a range of brilliant minds, Bellos careers lucidly through the most mind-boggling concepts with which they grapple. Some…
