It All Adds Up: The Story of People and Mathematics
‘Fascinating … so enlightening that suddenly maths doesn’t seem so fearsome as it once did’ SIMON WINCHESTERFrom Aristotle to Ada Lovelace: a brief history of the mathematical ideas that have forever changed the world and the everyday people and pioneers behind them. The story of our best invention yet.From our ability to calculate the passing of time to the algorithms that control computers and much else in our lives, numbers are everywhere. They are so indispensable that we forget how fundamental they are to our way of life.In this international bestseller, Mickaël Launay mixes history and anecdotes from around the world to reveal how mathematics became pivotal to the story of humankind. It is a journey into numbers with Launay as a guide. In museums, monuments or train stations, he uses the objects around us to explain what art can reveal about geometry, how Babylonian scholars developed one of the first complex written languages, and how ‘Arabic’ numbers were adopted from India. It All Adds Up also tells the story of how mapping the trajectory of an eclipse has helped to trace the precise day of one of the oldest battles in history, how the course of the modern-day Greenwich Meridian was established, and why negative numbers were accepted just last century.This book is a vital compendium of the great men and women of mathematics from Aristotle to Ada Lovelace, which demonstrates how mathematics shaped the written word and the world. With clarity, passion and wisdom, the author unveils the unexpected and at times serendipitous ways in which big mathematical ideas were created. Supporting the belief that – just like music or literature – maths should be accessible to everyone, Launay will inspire a new fondness for the numbers that surround us and the rich stories they contain.
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William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2018
First published in France by Flammarion, as Le grand romans des maths in 2016
Copyright © Mickaël Launay 2016
Translation copyright © Stephen S Wilson 2018
Drawing here by Maurice Bourlon; Image here © IRSNB, Thierry HubinMap here in the public domain, courtesy of Bibliothèque nationale de France, GE BB-565 (A7,10); Image here from Wikimedia Commons; Image here by Stefan Zachow.
Mickaël Launay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Stephen S Wilson asserts the moral right to be identified as the translator of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 9780008283933
Ebook Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 9780008283957
Version: 2018-11-08
Contents
Copyright
Foreword
1. Mathematicians without knowing it
2. And then there were numbers
3. Let no one ignorant of geometry enter
4. The age of theorems
5. A little method
6. Π in the sky
7. Nothing and less than nothing
8. The power of triangles
9. Into the unknown
10. In sequence
11. Imaginary worlds
12. A language for mathematics
13. The world’s alphabet
14. The infinitely small
15. Measuring the future
16. The coming of machines
17. Maths to come
Epilogue
To go further
Footnotes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
About the Publisher
‘Oh, I’ve never been much good at maths myself!’
I’m getting a little blasé. This must be at least the tenth time I’ve heard that remark today.
But this lady has been here at my stall for a good fifteen minutes, standing with a group of other visitors, listening attentively while I describe various geometrical curiosities. That’s how the conversation started.
‘But what do you do for a living?’ she asked me.
‘I’m a mathematician.’
‘Oh, I’ve never been much good at maths myself!’
‘Really? But you seemed to be interested in what I was just talking about.’
‘Yes … but that’s not really maths … that was understandable.’
I hadn’t heard that one before. Is mathematics, by definition, a discipline that can’t be understood?
It’s the beginning of August, in the Cours Félix Faure in La Flotte-en-Ré, France. In this small summer market, I have a pop-up – there is henna tattooing and afro braids to my right, a mobile-phone accessory stall to my left, and a display of jewels and trinkets of all kinds opposite me. I’ve set up my maths stand in the middle of all this. Holidaymakers stroll peacefully by in the cool of the evening. I particularly like doing maths in unusual places. Where people aren’t expecting it. Where they are not on their guard …
‘Can’t wait to tell my parents I did some maths during the holidays!’ This from a secondary school pupil as he walks past my stall on his way back from the beach.
It’s true – I do catch them slightly unawares. But sometimes you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. This is one of my favourite moments: observing the expression on the faces of people who thought that they had fallen out with maths for good at the instant when I tell them that they have just been doing maths for fifteen minutes. And my stall is always crowded! I present origami, magic tricks, games, riddles … there’s something for everyone.
No matter how much this amuses me, on balance I find it upsetting. How has it come about that we need to hide from people the fact that they are doing maths before they can take some pleasure in it? Why is the word so frightening? One thing is certain: had I put up a sign above my table proclaiming ‘Mathematics’ as visibly as ‘Jewels and necklaces’, ‘Phones’ or ‘Tattooing’ on the stalls around me, I would not have had a quarter of the same success. People would not have stopped. Perhaps they would even have turned away and averted their gaze.
All the same, the curiosity is there. I observe this every day. Mathematics is scary, yet even more, it is fascinating. Some may not like it, but would like to like it, or at least to be able to peep at will into its murky mysteries. Many think it is inaccessible. But this is not true. It is perfectly possible to love music without being a musician, or to like to share a nice meal without being a great cook. Then why should you have to be a mathematician, or someone exceptionally clever, in order to be open to hearing about mathematics and to enjoy having your imagination tickled by algebra or geometry? It is not necessary to delve into the technical details in order to understand the great ideas and to be able to marvel at them.
