Are Numbers Real?

"In Are Numbers Real Clegg tackles a very deep question in his usual way; with clarity, wit and a wonderfully clear narrative writing style. For me, numbers are like natural language: they obviously don’t exist in a physical sense—you cannot trip over the number '2' in the street—yet numbers are at the heart of understanding the universe. Clegg covers a wide variety of subjects to seek out the truth of the matter in an engaging and hugely accessible way. I personally couldn’t put it down, and as an active researcher in the field itself, it has provided me with some very real (?) food for thought."—Dr. Peet Morris, University of Oxford

"Brian Clegg’s Are Numbers Real? Is a compact, very readable, and highly entertaining history of the development and use of mathematics to answer the important practical questions involved in advancing civilization . . . Even for the reader not versed in the vector calculus used in the statement of Maxwell’s Laws, simply seeing the four Laws mathematically stated will induce (certainly the mot juste here) the feeling that this is the way the Universe is meant to be understood. And that sense of wonder permeates the entire book . . . a superb introduction to mathematics, science, and that branch of philosophy devoted to exploring the nature of reality."—Dr. James Stein, California State University, Long Beach