The Kingdom of Infinite Number: A Field Guide

by Bryan Bunch

Just as bird guides help watchers tell birds apart by their color, songs, and behavior, The Kingdom of Infinite Number is the perfect handbook for identifying numbers in their native habitat. Taking a field guide-like approach, it offers a fresh way of looking at individual numbers and the properties that make them unique, which are also the properties essential for mental computation. The result provides new insights into mathematical patterns and relationships and an increased appreciation for the sheer wonder of numbers.Every number in this book is identified by its "field marks," "similar species," "personality," and "associations." For example, one field mark of the number 6 is that it is the first perfect number the sum of its divisors (1,2, and 3) is equal to the number itself. Thus 28, the next perfect number, is a similar species. And the fact that 6 can easily be broken into 2 and 3 is part of its personality, a trait that is helpful when large numbers are being either multiplied or divided by 6. In addition to such classifications, special attention is paid to dozens of other fascinating numbers, transfinite and other exceptionally larger numbers, and the concept of infinity.Ideal for beginners but organized to appeal to the mathematically literate, The Kingdom of Infinite Number will not only ad to readers' enjoyment of mathematics, but to their problem-solving abilities as well.

Genres: Mathematics

Hardcover

First published January 10, 2000

About the author

BRYAN BUNCH got his B.A. in English (more writing than literature) and taught high-school English and wrote poetry for a year after graduation, then started work in New York publishing as a copyeditor. Shortly after it appeared that the U.S. might lose the space race to the Soviet Union, he returned to his early love of mathematics and began graduate studies, specializing in foundations and logic. This led to changing from reference books to el-high textbooks as a mathematics editor. During 20 years in the textbook field, he also headed the math and science departments, ending his career as editor-in-chief. When he left textbook editing to become a consultant and freelance editor, he left behind with the trade division of his company a proposal for a book, which became published as Mathematical Fallacies and Paradoxes (still in print in a Dover edition). Joining The Hudson Group of writers led to freelance work on reference books. Bryan soon started Scientific Publishing, Inc., devoted to using computers in publishing (the PC was brand new at the time; he bought the first one produced by IBM as soon as it was available) and focusing on current science, science history, and medicine. Bryan ran scientific publishing for 25 years before retiring--to a degree, as he continues to write.

BOOKS BY BRYAN BUNCH
201? Figures among the Stars (YA novel about adventures of young Archimedes and his friends)
2004 The History of Science and Technology, Houghton-Mifflin (with Alexander
Hellemans); also available in leather-bound Easton Press edition and a Kindle edition.
2003 Discover Science Almanac, Hyperion (with Jenny Tesar)
2001 Blackbirch Encyclopedia of Science and Invention, Blackbirch Press (with Jenny Tesar).
2000 Penguin Desk Encyclopedia of Science and Mathematics, Penguin U.S.A. (with Jenny Tesar--named by AAAS Science Books as one of the three best science reference books of the year)
2000 The Kingdom of Infinite Number: A Field Guide, W.H. Freeman (Natural Science Book Club selection; New York Public Library 2001 Books for Teen Age List), also available for Kindle
1998 Satellites and Probes (with Clint Hachett; vol. 12 of Outer Space), Grolier. Highly recommended by Book Report November/December 1998.
1998 Family Encyclopedia of Disease, W. H. Freeman (Editor).
1997 Mathematical Fallacies and Paradoxes, Dover Publications (paperbound)
1996 The Globe Junior High School Science Series, New Revised Edition, Globe Book Company (Senior Author).
Handbook of Current Science and Technology (Gale Research).
1994 Handbook of Current Health and Medicine (Gale Research).
1993 The Timetables of Technology (with Alexander Hellemans), Simon and Schuster; also available as a CD ROM in 1997.
1992 The Henry Holt Handbook of Current Science and Technology, Henry Holt and Company; listed by Library Journal as one of the best science books of 1992 and by the American Librarians Association among the best reference sources of 1992.
1991 The Timetables of Science, new, updated edition (with Alexander Hellemans), Touchstone Books (Library of Science Book Club, Quality Paperback Book Club)
1990 Excel in Graphing Level H (with Margaret Hill), Modern Curriculum Press.
1989 Reality's Mirror: Exploring the Mathematics of Symmetry, John Wiley; listed by Library Journal as one of the best science books of 1989; also published in Japan in Japanese.
1988 The Timetables of Science (with Alexander Hellemans), Simon and Schuster; also published in England, in Germany (in German), in Japan (in Japanese), and Romania (in Rumanian).
1986 The Globe Junior High School Science Series, Globe Book Company (Senior Author).
1985 Harper & Row Elementary Mathematics, Grades K 8, Macmillan McGraw (Co author).
1984 The Science Almanac, Doubleday
1984 A Practical Herb Garden (with recipes), TAB Books.
1983 Algebra One, McDougal, Littell (Co author). Fun with Math, World Book Childcraft.
1982 Mathematical Fallacies and Paradoxes, Van Nostrand Reinhold

Reviews

[PJ T. de Barros · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was not very good. It's set up to be a catalog of numbers, with interesting information about the various numbers. The problem is that most of the information is pretty dull. Some of the information is interesting, but only briefly mentioned, and those topics would be better encountered in a context that gave them fair treatment. Also, some of the points made in the book are actually incorrect.

[Ilib4kids]

513 BUN

[Jason Barnhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

It hurt my head but in a good way.