Infinity is a profoundly counter-intuitive and brain-twisting subject that has inspired some great thinkers - and provoked and shocked others. The ancient Greeks were so horrified by the implications of an endless number that they drowned the man who gave away the secret. And a German mathematician was driven mad by the repercussions of his discovery of transfinite numbers. Brian Clegg and Oliver Pugh's brilliant graphic tour of infinity features a cast of characters ranging from Archimedes and Pythagoras to al-Khwarizmi, Fibonacci, Galileo, Newton, Leibniz, Cantor, Venn, Gödel and Mandelbrot, and shows how infinity has challenged the finest minds of science and mathematics. Prepare to enter a world of paradox.
Brian Clegg is a popular science writer whose Dice World and A Brief History of Infinity were both longlisted for the Royal Society Prize for Science Books. He has written for publications including Nature, The Times and BBC Focus. |
