Table of Contents
Introduction 10
1 Numbers: Fearsome Or Fun? 17
The trouble with numbers 18
Numbers as a concept 23
How numbers behave 25
Number patterns 28
Progress? 34
2 Clear-Headed Calculating 39
All in your head 40
Developing your mental muscles 45
The electronic brain 48
Magic maths: 6801 50
Conversion benchmarks 52
Fibonacci 54
3 Number Relationships 59
Parts of a whole 60
Mentally calculating percentages 65
Ratios and proportions 67
The golden ratio 72
Meaningful averages 76
A is for algebra 80
Number bases 84
Interlude: Famous Mathematicians 88
4 Everyday Mathematics 93
Market forces 94
The value of estimating 98
Savings and loans 101
The money market 104
Navigation 108
5 Numbers: Can You Really Count On Them? 113
Statistics: should we trust them? 114
It's all a matter of scale 118
Chance and probability 120
The Monty Hall problem 124
What are the odds? 126
6 The Wonder Of Numbers 131
Zero: something and nothing 132
Prime numbers 135
Codes: a mathematical enigma 138
Utter chaos! 140
Discovering fractals 142
A world without numbers? 143
Into the world of the unreal 145
Solutions 148
Further reading 157
Author's website 158
Acknowledgments 158
Picture credits 159