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The Book of Wonders

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What to expect

‘An astonishingly readable and informative history of the greatest mathematical bestseller of all time … The writing is vivid and the stories are gripping. Highly recommended ’ IAN STEWART, AUTHOR OF SIGNIFICANT FIGURES

Euclid’s Elements of Geometry was a book that changed the world. In this sweeping history, Benjamin Wardhaugh traces how the ancient Greek text on mathematics – often hailed as the world’s first textbook – shaped two thousand years of art, philosophy and literature, as well as science and maths.

With stories of influence on every continent, and encounters with the likes of Ptolemy and Isaac Newton, Hobbes and Lewis Carroll, Wardhaugh gives dramatic life to the evolution of mathematics.

Previously published as The Book of Wonders

Critics Review

n Praise for The Book of Wondersn
‘An astonishingly readable and informative history of the greatest mathematical bestseller of all time, from ancient Greece to dark energy. The writing is vivid and the stories are gripping. Highly recommended!’
Ian Stewart, author of Significant Figures
‘Benjamin Wardhaugh is an excellent storyteller and his collected short story approach to the history of The Elements works splendidly… simultaneously educational, entertaining and illuminating … A highly desirable read for all those, both professional and amateur, who interest themselves in the histories of mathematics, science and knowledge … over almost two and a half millennia’
Thony Christie, The Renaissance Mathematicus
n Praise for Benjamin Wardhaugh’s Gunpowder and Geometryn
‘Meticulous yet lively biography, even those who have never heard of its subject could hardly disagree’ Sunday Times
‘Wardhaugh graphically describes the conditions Hutton escaped from and the importance of Newcastle and its coal to the changes taking place in Britain in the second half of the eighteenth century . . . like something from the pages of a Jane Austen novel . . . Wardhaugh has done a good job of rescuing Hutton from obscurity and setting the man and his achievements in the context of their times . . . This account of how “the pit boy turned professor” became “one of the most revered British scientists of his day” is well worth reading’ Literary Review
‘As this book argues persuasively, he changed a whole culture: by simple dint of his genial celebrity as well as a europhile passion for developments in France and elsewhere, he helped to elevate mathematics to a rank equal with the other sciences. It is impossible not to warm to such a man in Wardhaugh’s wryly sympathetic telling . . . Spirited and elegantly erudite’ Daily Telegraph
Author Benjamin Wardhaugh
Narrator Paul Hilliar
Duration 9 hours and 40 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9780008299934
Format x-book®
Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
Genre Ancient history, History of mathematics
Availability AU, GB, IE

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