Alex Bellos

A hugely enjoyable, brilliantly researched explanation of the basic principles of maths.

Alex's Adventures in Numberland

The best-selling author of Here's Looking at Euclid presents a narrative distillation of complex mathematical concepts that traces historical discoveries, surveys India's World Mathematical Congress and profiles grassroots mathematical luminaries.

How Life Reflects Numbers and Numbers Reflect Life

The Grapes of Math

Too often math gets a bad rap, characterized as dry and difficult. But, Alex Bellos says, "math can be inspiring and brilliantly creative. Mathematical thought is one of the great achievements of the human race, and arguably the foundation of all human progress. The world of mathematics is a remarkable place." Bellos has traveled all around the globe and has plunged into history to uncover fascinating stories of mathematical achievement, from the breakthroughs of Euclid, the greatest mathematician of all time, to the creations of the Zen master of origami, one of the hottest areas of mathematical work today. Taking us into the wilds of the Amazon, he tells the story of a tribe there who can count only to five and reports on the latest findings about the math instinct—including the revelation that ants can actually count how many steps they’ve taken. Journeying to the Bay of Bengal, he interviews a Hindu sage about the brilliant mathematical insights of the Buddha, while in Japan he visits the godfather of Sudoku and introduces the brainteasing delights of mathematical games. Exploring the mysteries of randomness, he explains why it is impossible for our iPods to truly randomly select songs. In probing the many intrigues of that most beloved of numbers, pi, he visits with two brothers so obsessed with the elusive number that they built a supercomputer in their Manhattan apartment to study it. Throughout, the journey is enhanced with a wealth of intriguing illustrations, such as of the clever puzzles known as tangrams and the crochet creation of an American math professor who suddenly realized one day that she could knit a representation of higher dimensional space that no one had been able to visualize. Whether writing about how algebra solved Swedish traffic problems, visiting the Mental Calculation World Cup to disclose the secrets of lightning calculation, or exploring the links between pineapples and beautiful teeth, Bellos is a wonderfully engaging guide who never fails to delight even as he edifies. Here’s Looking at Euclid is a rare gem that brings the beauty of math to life.

A Surprising Excursion Through the Astonishing World of Math

Here's Looking at Euclid

In this richly entertaining and accessible book, Alex Bellos explodes the myth that maths is best left to the geeks. Covering subjects from adding to algebra from set theory to statistics, and from logarithms to logical paradoxes, he explains how mathematical ideas underpin just about everything in our lives. Alex explains the surprising geometry of the 50p piece, and the strategy of how best to gamble it in a casino. He shines a light on the mathematical patterns in nature, and on the peculiar predictability of random behaviour. He eats a potato crisp whose revolutionary shape was unpalatable to the ancient Greeks, and he shows the deep connections between maths, religion and philosophy. Alex weaves a journey from primary school to university level maths, from ancient history to the computing frontline, and from St Louis, Missouri, to Braintree, Essex. He meets the world's fastest mental calculators in Germany, consults a numerologist in the US desert, meets a startlingly numerate chimpanzee in Japan, and seeks advice from a venerable Hindu sage in India. An unlikely but exhilarating cocktail of history, reportage and mathematical proofs, Alex's Adventures in Numberland show the world of maths to be a much friendlier and more colourful place than you might have imagined.

Are you smarter than a Singaporean ten-year-old? Can you beat Sherlock Holmes? If you think the answer is yes – I challenge you to solve my problems. Here is the story of the puzzle, one of mankind’s oldest and greatest forms of entertainment and enlightenment, told through 125 of the world’s best brainteasers from the last two millennia. It takes us from ancient China to medieval Europe, Victorian England to modern-day Japan, with stories of espionage, mathematical breakthroughs and puzzling rivalries along the way. You'll pit your wits against logic puzzles and kinship riddles, pangrams and river-crossing conundrums. Some solutions rely on a touch of cunning, others call for creativity, others need mercilessly logical thought. Some can only be solved by 2% of the population. All are guaranteed to sharpen your mind. Let's get puzzling...

A Casebook of Ingenious, Perplexing and Totally Satisfying Puzzles

Can You Solve My Problems?

The Brazilian football team is one of the modern wonders of the world. At its best it exudes a skill, flamboyance and romantic pull like nothing else on earth. Football is how the world sees Brazil and how Brazilians see themselves. The game symbolises racial harmony, flamboyance, youth, innovation and skill, and yet football is also a microcosm of Latin America's largest country and contains all of its contradictions. Travelling extensively from the Uruguayan border to the north-eastern backlands, from the coastal cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo to the Amazon jungle, Bellos shows how Brazil changed football and how football shaped Brazil. He tells the stories behind the great players, like Pele and Garrincha, between the great teams, like Corinthians and Vasco de Gama, and the great matches, as well as extraordinary stories from people and pitches all over this vast country. With an unerring eye for a good story and a marvellous ear for the voices of the people he meets, Alex Bellos describes the startling range of football spinoffs found in Brazil; from Autoball, literally football with cars and a giant leather ball through to Ecoball, played in the heart of the rainforest, to the truly alarming Footbull (yes; with bulls).

The Brazilian Way of Life

Futebol

From triangles, rotations and power laws, to fractals, cones and curves, bestselling author Alex Bellos takes you on a journey of mathematical discovery with his signature wit, engaging stories and limitless enthusiasm. As he narrates a series of eye-opening encounters with lively personalities all over the world, Alex demonstrates how numbers have come to be our friends, are fascinating and extremely accessible, and how they have changed our world. He turns even the dreaded calculus into an easy-to-grasp mathematical exposition, and sifts through over 30,000 survey submissions to reveal the world's favourite number. In Germany, he meets the engineer who designed the first roller-coaster loop, whilst in India he joins the world's highly numerate community at the International Congress of Mathematicians. He explores the wonders behind the Game of Life program, and explains mathematical logic, growth and negative numbers. Stateside, he hangs out with a private detective in Oregon and meets the mathematician who looks for universes from his garage in Illinois. Read this captivating book, and you won't realise that you're learning about complex concepts. Alex will get you hooked on maths as he delves deep into humankind's turbulent relationship with numbers, and proves just how much fun we can have with them.

Alex Through the Looking-Glass

Lexical Perplexities and Cracking Conundrums from Across the Globe

The Language Lover's Puzzle Book

Edmund Harriss

"A coloring book that reveals math's hidden beauty and contemplative power as never before with 78 coloring designs and games that explore symmetry, fractals, tessellations, randomness, and more."--

A Coloring Adventure in Math and Beauty

Patterns of the Universe

Como a Vida Reflete os Números e Como os Números Refletem a Vida

Alex Através do Espelho

Ben Lyttleton

A groundbreaking new series from two bestselling writers that teaches you about the world through the prism of football. The first book is packed with awesome true stories, real science and fascinating facts and will make you laugh loads. When do footballers poo? Can you play football on Mars? What is a magic sponge? You will find the answers to these questions and more in chapters on subjects such as history, geography, biology and maths. Illustrated throughout with hilarious cartoons and filled with laugh-out-loud gags this is the perfect book for any boy or girl who loves football. Your coaches at Football School, Alex Bellos and Ben Lyttleton, are journalists, broadcasters and award-winning science and sports writers. Their knowledge, enthusiasm and engaging writing make them the perfect team to teach you how to score with your head.

Where Football Explains [crossed Out] Rules the World

Football School

Futebol - Brezilya Tarzı Yaşam

Thought you had it bad? In this book, you will be: Imprisoned by a sadistic logician. Challenged to raise dogs from the dead. Trapped on a burning island. And much more besides . . . Everything is at stake in this compendium of more than 150 ingenious puzzles, selected to reveal the wonderful diversity of brainteasers that have confounded and intrigued solvers for the last thousand years. You'll need to pit your wits against probability problems, wrestle with wordplay, grapple with geometry and scrabble for survival. Along the way you will discover stories of whip-smart thinkers, eccentric novelists and a poodle with allegedly supernatural powers. You will absorb fascinating and important mathematical ideas. Some solutions will rely on ingenuity, some will challenge you to spot hidden patterns, others call for extreme rationality. All will surprise, entertain and stretch your brain. Will you make it out with your puzzling pride intact?

Puzzles to Flex, Stretch and Sharpen Your Mind

So You Think You've Got Problems?

Soccer School is back in session and ready to defend its goal: to explain the world through soccer. Coaches Alex Bellos and Ben Lyttleton return with even more proof that soccer can be used to teach kids about pretty much anything. The second book in their funny, fascinating series is full of facts about the most popular sport in the world, from history to language, design to psychology. When did women begin playing soccer? Why do lefties have an advantage on the field? Which soccer stadium was built in the shape of a crocodile? Perfect for soccer players, fans, or just plain curious kids, this series is packed with information and amusement in equal measure. Goal!

Soccer School Season 2: Where Soccer Explains (Saves) the World

The Brazilian football team is one of the wonders of the modern world and legendary names like Pelé, Garrincha and Ronaldo inspire awe in football-lovers everywhere. But in Latin America's largest country, football also symbolises racial harmony, the madness of love and the flamboyance of youth – it's a sport that expresses the identity of a nation. This edition of a book that is now a modern classic, updated to coincide with the 2014 World Cup, explores what makes Brazil the 'football country' it is. From the Amazonian jungle to the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Alex Bellos weaves a golden-yellow tapestry of stories of great names, great teams and great matches. Mixing fact with local legend, history and myth, in Futebol he uncovers what makes football the Brazilian way of life.

The Brazilian Way of Life - Updated Edition

This book is packed with awesome true stories, real science and fascinating facts and will make you laugh loads - and it's all about football. What is a vomitory? When do footballers wee? Where do goalkeepers let in chickens? When did women start playing football? You'll find the answers to these questions and more in chapters on subjects such as biology, maths and history. Illustrated throughout with hilarious cartoons and filled with laugh-out-loud gags this is the perfect book for any boy or girl who loves football.

Where Football Saves the World

Are you smarter than a Singaporean ten-year-old? Can you beat Sherlock Holmes? If you think the answer is yes - I challenge you to solve my problems. Here are 125 of the world's best brainteasers from the last two millennia, taking us from ancient China to medieval Europe, Victorian England to modern-day Japan, with stories of espionage, mathematical breakthroughs and puzzling rivalries along the way. Pit your wits against logic puzzles and kinship riddles, pangrams and river-crossing conundrums. Some solutions rely on a touch of cunning, others call for creativity, others need mercilessly logical thought. Some can only be solved be 2 per cent of the population. All are guaranteed to sharpen your mind. Let's get puzzling!

Parlare di calcio per non parlarne. Alex Bellos ha attraversato l'immensa patria del bel gioco per trovare nel pallone e nei suoi protagonisti ricchissimi professionisti o sconosciuti pedatori che siano - la chiave con cui interpretare e spiegare i misteri di un popolo e i suoi eccessi. Perché in tutte le arti, in ogni forma di costume (dalla danza alla musica, dalla religiosità animistica alle soap opera, dalla sessualità al... calcio), lo stile di vita brasiliano è quello dell'impossibile e sublime eclettismo. Nel caso del calcio, poi, magia, fanatismo e arte di arrangiarsi sono le molte facce di un carattere nazionale inafferrabile: dai club di tifosi più accesi e pericolosi, ai santuari pieni di reliquie calcistiche, dagli stregoni assoldati dalle società per scacciare il presunto malocchio che le fa perdere al disoccupato dal look stravagante che viene pagato dagli sponsor per mostrarsi nelle immagini dei grandi eventi sportivi, dal calcio-fango giocato sulle rive dei fiumi amazzonici al nostalgico che gestisce l'unica bottega del Paese di calcio-bottoni, ogni personaggio di questo continente di umanità che si chiama Brasile contribuisce al fascino delle sue insolubili contraddizioni. Ma altri contrasti vanno aggiunti, come lo strapotere dei dirigenti di società, spesso deputati nazionali, o una Federazione calcistica nazionale corrotta, che, a detta di alcuni, ha trasformato il mercato interno in una vetrina per i club europei.

This winning nonfiction series explains the world via soccer trivia, facts, and fun. This third book in the Soccer School series poses many intriguing questions for soccer fans: What color are Cristiano Ronaldo's pajamas? How many bones are there in the human foot? And why is that dodo alive and kicking? With funny cartoons and multiple-choice quizzes, this is the perfect way for young fans to learn how to score with their head. Coaches Alex Bellos and Ben Lyttleton kick off another season of Soccer School in this book packed with awesome true stories, real science, and fascinating facts. At this school, everything is about soccer!

Soccer School Season 3: Where Soccer Explains (Tackles) the World

An updated edition that includes a new chapter for the 2014 World Cup shares insight into the game at the heart of Brazil's national identity, revealing the role soccer has played in its history and how it is a microcosm of the nation itself.

Alex Bellos

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