The Kingdom of Infinite Number: A Field Guide by Bryan Bunch (PDF)

Description

Just as bird guides help watchers tell birds apart by their color, songs, and behavior, The Kingdom of Infinite Number is the perfect handbook for identifying numbers in their native habitat. Taking a field guide-like approach, it offers a fresh way of looking at individual numbers and the properties that make them unique, which are also the properties essential for mental computation. The result provides new insights into mathematical patterns and relationships and an increased appreciation for the sheer wonder of numbers.Every number in this book is identified by its “field marks,” “similar species,” “personality,” and “associations.” For example, one field mark of the number 6 is that it is the first perfect number– the sum of its divisors (1, 2, and 3) is equal to the number itself. Thus 28, the next perfect number, is a similar species. And the fact that 6 can easily be broken into 2 and 3 is part of its personality, a trait that is helpful when large numbers are being either multiplied or divided by 6. Associations with 6 include its relationship to the radius of a circle. In addition to such classifications, special attention is paid to dozens of other fascinating numbers, including zero, pi, 10 to the 76th power (the number of particles in the universe), transfinite and other exceptionally larger numbers, and the concept of infinity.Ideal for beginners but organized to appeal to the mathematically literate, The Kingdom of Infinite Number will not only add to readers’ enjoyment of mathematics, but to their problem-solving abilities as well.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This is a fascinating book that gives one a tour of numbers, their properties, idiosyncracies and uses in quick computation etc. Having each number somewhat independent from one another you can read any chapter at random and gain quite a bit. The text does require concentration to fully appreciate the ideas. Also I found that having a notepad and pencil proves quite handy. In some cases I had to read certain paragraphs twice to fully understand the material.There is one drawback that I just cannot overlook. The editing is substandard. Granted a typo here and there can be forgiven but it appears that in this case the number of errors is quite significant. Hence the four star rating.However, if you like numbers and their properties this is a good book to have by one’s bedside to read a chapter or two daily.

⭐It’s like a bird book, but for numbers. No need to read it in order, and good for short attention span type reading. There are a million little factoids in here. My son blames this book for making him major in math.

⭐probably for some but not for me.

⭐Not since the great Indian mathematician Srinivasi Ramanujan has anyone gotten so involved in the personality of numbers to the extent as which Bryan Bunch has, and the reader is far better off for it. The classic story about Ramanujan and the personality of numbers is the tale about the number 1729. When he was ill in a hospital in England he was paid a visit by his friend and colleague G. H. Hardy, who had been given a ride in a taxicab bearing that number. Upon greeting Ramanujan, Hardy remarked that 1729 seemed like an exceedingly dull number and he hoped that this would not be taken as a bad omen. Ramanujan immediately answered: “No, no, my friend, on the contrary; it is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number that can be formed by adding two cubes together in two different ways!”Such is the involvement of author Bryan Bunch with the personaliy of numbers. His tales of whole numbers from one to googolplex, fractions, algebraic, transcendental and imaginary numbers is sure to entertain and inform any reader with an interest in the world of numbers. His work is such that there is no such thing as an uninteresting number. To prove that there can be no such thing as an uninteresting number, consder the following: ‘One’ is interesting because it is considered neither prime nor composite; ‘two’ is ineresting because it is the only even prime number; ‘three’ is the smallest odd prime number; ‘four’ is the smallest even number to be a square; ‘five’is a Fermat prime; ‘six’ is the smallest perfect number;…until the first ‘uninteresting’ number is reached. The fact that it is the first uninteresting number immediately makes it interesting!Despite a few minor errors and the November 14 discovery of the primality of 2^13446917-1 (replacing 2^6972593-1 as the largest known prime number), I still believe that this book would be of great interest to any reader with an interest in numbers.1729 = 1^3 + 12^3 = 9^3 + 10^3, in case you are interested in the Ramanujan story.

⭐This is a tremendous book. If you have mathematically-inclined kids, it opens up the world of numbers in a way that shows them some of the pure joy in the subject. While a lot of effort has gone into linking ideas together, you can open this book at any page and have some fun.

⭐As someone who struggled with math all through grade school, college and grad school, but who somehow still finds numbers fascinating, I found this a great read. I learned more about mathematics and how it is relevant to just about every aspect of life than I ever learned from a “teacher”. In the innocence of my educated ignorance I enjoyed the book. Alas, had I known of all the egregious errors found by another reviewer, I’m sure I would have kept reading it so I could carp about it. Let’s just hope I don’t pass on this new misinformation to my children.

⭐The presentation of the kingdom of numbers as a field guide is a very clever idea. The book is visually engaging, giving numbers the “personality” that I’m sure experienced number theorists feel. It is clear that an enormous amount of effort has gone into the production of this book, and the result is enormously interesting.Unfortunately, not nearly as much effort went into the editing of the text. Numerous errors exist that exhibit carelessness on the part of the author and irresponsibility on the part of the editor(s). The book claims that 2 is a perfect square and that 1 is one order of magnitude larger than 0. Several more mathematical falsehoods and sloppy errors are in the book that will not fit in this review. Two or three mistakes might be attrubuted to typographical errors, but my list reached 15, and I make no claim that this list is complete. Hopefully this book will be more carefully edited before it goes to paperback, because it is a fine book, aside from its errors.

⭐For anyone who likes numbers, this book is a delight. Open it at random and find some fascinating treasure. Great for kids who are starting to reach out.

⭐Die Verpackung war richtig um das Buch zu schützen.Das Buch selbst war in einem besseren Zustand als die Anbieterbeschreibung, das war also eine gute Überraschung.Ich bin mit dem Service und dem Produkt sehr zufriedenEmpfehlenswert.

⭐

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