Marcus du Sautoy’s Number Mysteries
About the Book
‘Mind-bending, fascinating and useful too. Maths didn’t used to be this much fun.’
- Alan Davies
We are all taught how fundamental maths is to the world we live in. But did you know that Wayne Rooney solves a quadratic equation every time he connects with a cross to put the ball in the back of the net? That we use prime numbers when we shop on the Internet? Or that you can win $1 million just by solving one of the five puzzles in The Num8er My5teries?
In The Num8er My5teries, Marcus du Sautoy – mathematician, footballer and amateur musician – brings to life the beauty behind five mathematical puzzles that have contributed to our understanding of the world around us and have helped develop the technology to cope with it. With load of games to play and puzzles to solve this is a maths book for all ages from 1-101.
In The Num8er My5teries you will learn everything from how to better your chances at Rock, Paper, Scissors and break uncrackable codes, to uncovering the shape of the universe and predict the future. It will also show you how maths really is at the heart of everything that we do.
As well as neat original illustrations bringing to life Marcus’ anecdotes and examples, the book contains QR codes which, when scanned with a QR reader, will take the user to a webpage chosen by Marcus. In this way the reading experience becomes fully interactive, and is accompanied by a curated browsing experience so the learning in the book is complemented by further interesting examples online.
Click here to buy the book.
About the App
As well as the book, we have also created an iPhone app, Marcus du Sautoy’s Num8er My5teries, which is based around the game strategy chapter of the book. It contains writing, video and even a game ‘Moley’ based on the famous mathematics problem ‘Bridges of Konigsberg.’ In it you will learn how to make your friends think you can read their mind, and how maths can help you win at chocolate chilli roulette. The app will be available on the Apple app store soon.
Interactive
Several of the puzzles in the book and the app are interactive in the old fashioned way, too.
Reading the book or using the app you may be directed here, for files you can print out and play with to help you further your understanding of the maths.
P 5 Prime numbers fantasy football game
P 11 Cicada board game and cicadas and predators
P 66 Plato’s five footballs 1&2, 3, 4, 5
P 125 Rock, Paper, Scissors dice
P 144 Platonic Solids
(see above – Plato’s 5 footballs)
P 157 Cake slices and cake stand
P 162 5×5 version of Euler’s puzzle
P 182 Caesar cipher wheel
P 193 Enigma machine
P 256 Boomerang
P 276 Fish tank with fish
Prime numbers snakes and ladders
Other links
Here are some other websites you might like to visit:
If you want to dig deeper into some of the ideas and themes of this book, there’s a five-week course being developed at the Department of Continuing Education at the University of Oxford that will help you to continue exploring the Num8er My5teries.
www.rigb.org/christmaslectures2006
The website for my Royal Institution 2006 Christmas Lectures. The site contains lots of flash games – a travelling salesman problem to solve, codes to crack, and much more.
My homepage contains a selec tion of archived material from mathematical journals and the mainstream media.
The official site for the Simonyi Profes sorship for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford. It includes a list of my upcoming events.
http://twitter.com/MarcusduSautoy
Join me on Twitter.
An online maths school that I have been developing with free online games and resources to help people to learn and enjoy doing maths.
A free football game that I have been developing. Use your mathematical skills to try to predict how the Premiership will end next season, and you could win a million pounds!
The website of the Clay Mathematics Insti tute. It contains mathematical descriptions of the million-dollar problems.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history
A wonderful source of mathematical biographies maintained by the University of St Andrews.
A good site for more technical definitions and explanations of mathematical material.
Marcus’ Marvellous Mathemagicians or M3 for short – is a team of Oxford students who are helping to spread the mathematical message. M3 run workshops, activities and give talks about maths to a wide range of audiences.
