ABOUT BOOK

t is increasingly clear that the shapes of reality – whether of the natural world, or of the built environment – are in some profound sense mathematical. Therefore it would benefit students and educated adults to understand what makes mathematics itself ‘tick’, and to appreciate why its shapes, patterns and formulae provide us with precisely the language we need to make sense of the world around us. The second part of this challenge may require some specialist experience, but the authors of this book concentrate on the first part, and explore the extent to which elementary mathematics allows us all to understand something of the nature of mathematics from the inside.