The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure

Annoyed with his math teacher who assigns word problems and won't let him use a calculator, twelve-year-old Robert finds help from the number devil in his dreams.

Auteur

Hans Magnus Enzensberger; Illustrated by Rotraut Susanne Berner; Translated by Michael Heim

Texte du rabat

The international best-seller that makes mathematics a thrilling exploration

In twelve dreams, Robert, a boy who hates math, meets a Number Devil, who leads him to discover the amazing world of numbers: infinite numbers, prime numbers, Fibonacci numbers, numbers that magically appear in triangles, and numbers that expand without end. As we dream with him, we are taken further and further into mathematical theory, where ideas eventually take flight, until everyone-from those who fumble over fractions to those who solve complex equations in their heads-winds up marveling at what numbers can do.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger is a true polymath, the kind of superb intellectual who loves thinking and marshals all of his charm and wit to share his passions with the world. In The Number Devil, he brings together the surreal logic of Alice in Wonderland and the existential geometry of Flatland with the kind of math everyone would love, if only they had a number devil to teach them.