Thanks to my classmate from MBA days – Somshekhar Baksi – I chanced upon one of the most fascinating books I have read in a long time. If you are even remotely interested in maths and wanted to learn about some wide ranging topics – but not so deep that you will get lost quickly, then this is the book for you.

There are some incredible chapters on the 4th dimension (a great example of thinking about somebody living in 2D always and what 3D will mean to them brings the chapter home), Probability, Prime Numbers (you learn how a great breakthrough in prime numbers was made by a professor while doodling out of sheer boredom listening to a uninspiring talk), Patterns (you realize suddenly that there is no straight answer to a simple question like – what is the length of the coast of a country? It actually monotonically increases without end the smaller your measurement tool/unit becomes!), Chess and even Chaos (how the world wide web has become today “Borge’s library of Babel” – together with all the drivel and fake news).

The chapter that interested me most was the one on very large numbers and the concept of infinity (there are infinite kinds of infinities) and why we trip up while thinking about infinity.

It is a fantastic read!

One problem though. This is not available in USA or in the electronic form. I had to order the paper version on Amazon and wait for three weeks for it to be delivered… from India!!

Again, thank you Somshekhar!