Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

Huge Numbers: A Story of Counting Ambitiously, from 4 1/2 to Fish 7

by Richard Elwes
Save 32% Save 32%
Current price ₹2,138.00
Original price ₹3,136.00
Original price ₹3,136.00
Original price ₹3,136.00
(-32%)
₹2,138.00
Current price ₹2,138.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 12-14 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Hardcover
  • ISBN13: 9781541605923
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: Basic Books
  • Publisher Imprint: Basic Books
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 368
  • Original Price: USD 32.0
  • Language: English
  • Edition: N/A
  • Item Weight: 545 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): History & Philosophy

How humanity's long pursuit of ever-larger numbers broke the boundaries of mathematics and propelled us into the Information Age

"A charming tour"--Jordan Ellenburg, author of Shape

What if, every time you wanted to write down 1,000,000, you had to draw a picture of a god? And what if that number were the biggest you had a symbol for? If you were doing math in ancient Egypt, those were the rules: anything bigger broke math.

As mathematician Richard Elwes shows in Huge Numbers, this is the strange story of math. Even today, writing down some numbers is beyond us: try it with all the zeroes in a googolplex, or an outrageous alien number like TREE(3). Safer not to try: even harnessing every particle in the universe, you wouldn't come close. But this book is no mere bestiary of numerical monsters. It shows how, by hunting down and studying ever-bigger numbers, arithmetic has reshaped human thought and made our modern era of science and computation possible.

Where many math books celebrate abstract algebra or ineffable infinities, Huge Numbers is both more practical and far weirder. It reveals a world where most numbers remain out of reach until we discover how to chase them down and tame them, and so remake our world again.

Richard Okura Elwes is an associate professor at University of Leeds, and a Holgate Session Leader for the London Mathematical Society. He lives in Leeds, UK.

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us