The story of how we got our numbers told through one mathematician's journey to find zero.The invention of numerals is perhaps the greatest abstraction the human mind has ever created. Virtually everything in our lives is digital, numerical or quantified. The story of how and where we got these numerals has for thousands of years been shrouded in mystery. Finding Zero is an adventure-filled saga of Amir Aczel's lifelong obsession: to find the original sources of our numerals. Aczel has doggedly crisscrossed the ancient world, scouring dusty, moldy texts, cross examining so-called scholars who offered wildly differing sets of facts and ultimately penetrating deep into a Cambodian jungle to find a definitive proof. Here, he takes the reader along for the ride. The history begins with the early Babylonian cuneiform numbers, followed by the later Greek and Roman letter numerals. Then Aczel asks the key question: where do the numbers we use today, the so-called Hindu-Arabic numerals, come from? This leads him to explore uncharted territory, to go on a grand quest into India, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and ultimately into the wilds of Cambodia. There he finds the earliest zero on a crumbling, vine-covered wall of a seventh century temple adorned with eaten away erotic sculptures. While on this odyssey, Aczel meets academics in search of truth, jungle trekkers looking for adventure, surprisingly honest politicians, shameless smugglers and archaeological thieves who finally reveal where our numbers come from.
The Ufo Phenomenon Mysteries Of The Unknown
Time Life Books
Time Books International
Deity Cosmos And Man
Farthing Geoffrey A
Point Loma Pub. Inc.
The Book Of Great Mysteries
Christopher Maynard
Purnell
Science Consciousness Freedom
Manoranjan Basu
Indica Books
Uncommon Wisdom Conversations With Remarkable People
Fritjof Capra
Flamingo/Harper Collins Publishers
Phantoms In The Brain Probing The Mysteries Of The Human Mind
V. S. Ramachandran,Sandra Blakeslee
Harper Collins Publishers Limited
Algorithms To Live By The Computer Science Of Human Decisions
Tom Griffith,Christian Brian
William Collins/Harper Collins Publishers
The Explorers Gene Why We Seek Big Challenges New Flavors And The Blank Spots On The Map
Alex Hutchinson
Mariner Books/Harper Collins Publishers
Surely You Are Joking Mr Feynman Adventures Of A Curious Character
Richard P. Feynman
Vintage Books/Penguin Random House Group
The Fabric Of Reality
David Deutsch
Penguin Random House Group
Fill up your details to notify you when this book will be available