Thinking In Numbers: On Life, Love, Meaning, and Math

by Daniel Tammet

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Mentions
366	10	70,082	(3.31)	7
The book that Daniel Tammet, bestselling author and mathematical savant, was born to write. In Tammet's world, numbers are beautiful and mathematics illuminates our lives and minds. Using anecdotes, everyday examples, and ruminations on history, literature, and more, Tammet allows us to share his unique insights and delight in the way numbers, fractions, and equations underpin all our lives. His idiosyncratic worldview gives us new perspecttives on the universal questions of what it is to be human and how we make meaning. This book will change the way you think about math and fire your imagination to see the world with fresh eyes.--From publisher description.… (more)

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At first, I thought the narrative was a bit too far out there, but it kind of grabs you & it is truly a unique insight into a brain that is wired a bit differently. (

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BBrookes | Dec 8, 2023 |

This was an interesting book; it's sort of a collection of his thoughts concerning numbers, and applications of numbers. I followed most of it, although for some of it, I didn't have any background on the subject matter, and therefore did not grasp completely. (

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Wren73 | Mar 4, 2022 |

This is a series of essays by Trammet, an autistic savant, with the common themes of numbers.

Almost all the essays are fascinating, and are written with a refreshing clarity and eloquence. The subjects of the essays are wide and not what you would always consider to be mathematical, but they are eminently readable. My favourite is the one on Pi, where he talks about the mysteries of the number, and recounts he record breaking recital of Pi to 22,514 places.

Well worth reading even if you don't like maths! (

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PDCRead | Apr 6, 2020 |

How the author once publicly recited, from memory, the first 22,514 digits of pi in 5 hours and 9 minutes. Plus 24 other undemanding, easy-reading, sublimely thoughtful vignettes on topics truly multifarious. Neither requires nor imparts much knowledge of math.

fpagan | Dec 3, 2013 |

Not what I expected, but still enjoyable. Expected a concentration on specific math problems or mathematical issues that the author has worked on. Instead, it was brief, momentary memoirs of encounters (both expected and surprising) with math, number, calculation in the author's life.

FKarr | Nov 11, 2013 |

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[Daniel] Tammet's essays are the product of a truly eclectic mind--the kind of mind that can gracefully link a Tolstoy short story, a maxim from Seneca and contemporary economic inequality. . . . He never gives the sense, however, that he's out to prove a turgid point; rather, there's a lovely casualness to his writing that makes his drift from one topic to another seem natural and instinctive. . . . [N]o matter how personable the author or how elegantly breezy his tone, he is not like us. What a pleasure it is, however, to peer inside his utterly singular mind.

added by sgump | editSmithsonian, Chloë Schama (Jun 1, 2013)

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Thinking in Numbers: On Life, Love, Meaning, and Math

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2012-02-01

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London, England, UK

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Epigraph

Chess is life. - Bobby Fischer

Like all great rationalists you believed in things that were twice as incredible as theology. - Halldor Laxness, Under the Glacier

To see everything, the Master's eye is best of all, As for me, I would add, so is the Lover's eye. - Caius Julius Phaedrus

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Daniel Tammet

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The book that Daniel Tammet, bestselling author and mathematical savant, was born to write. In Tammet's world, numbers are beautiful and mathematics illuminates our lives and minds. Using anecdotes, everyday examples, and ruminations on history, literature, and more, Tammet allows us to share his unique insights and delight in the way numbers, fractions, and equations underpin all our lives. His idiosyncratic worldview gives us new perspecttives on the universal questions of what it is to be human and how we make meaning. This book will change the way you think about math and fire your imagination to see the world with fresh eyes.--From publisher description.

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