[Home Page][Index of Reviews][Mismeasure of Man][Night is Large]

Nature's Numbers
by Ian Stewart

Numbers are everywhere and, as this book, subtitled "Discovering Order and Pattern in the Universe" shows, numbers and mathematics have a profound impact on how nature and the world is shaped.

He starts off with a short, simple introduction to numbers and the idea of proving mathematical theorems. He makes a neat analogy on how mathematical theorems are made by comparing it to how a novel is formed out of sentences. Just a lines and lines of sentences have to make overall sense in a novel, so do lines and lines of mathematical proof have to make overall sense to be accepted. This is an interesting way at looking at mathematical proofs that has never been pointed out to me before during my education but which makes good sense now (as all obvious ideas do).

He then goes on to give an eye's view of calculus (integration and differentiation) and, using acceleration, velocity and distance as examples, shows how they work.

Next, in a wonderful chapter, he shows how working out the way a violin string vibrates eventually lead to the idea of radio and television (the equations governing the vibration of strings have the same form as Maxwell's equations for electromagnetic vibration). He also makes a case for not aiming for 'applied science' only as no one can ever know when a theoretical result (vibration of strings) can ever lead to practical technology (TV, radio).

The idea of 'linked oscillators' is then introduced in a fascinating chapter that looks at how four-legged creatures (like the horse) move their legs under different speeds. He shows how simple mechanisms that interact with one-another can be used to generate the required gaits.

In the final chapters of the book, he looks at two of the most fascinating parts of mathematics; fractals and chaos theory. Using simple examples like the dripping of water, he goes on to show the central ideas behind chaos theory (non-linear dynamic systems); sensitivity to initial conditions, phase space, strange attractors, etc.

This is a wonderful book that will serve as a useful introduction to people who do not know much about mathematics but would like to know what can be done with mathematics. While there are some diagrams in the book to illustrate certain points, the book could have been better if some of the verbal explanations (like phase space and population cycles) had diagrams or pictures to accompany them to make the ideas clearer to the reader. This is a simple but fun book to be read by anybody.

[Home Page][Index of Reviews][Mismeasure of Man][Night is Large]

Nature's Numbers by Ian Stewart

Nature's Numbers
by Ian Stewart