The Big Bang of Numbers

How to Build the Universe Using Only Math

De: Manil Suri

Narrado por: Eric Jason Martin

Our universe has multiple origin stories, from religious creation myths to the Big Bang of scientists. But if we leave those behind and start from nothing—no matter, no cosmos, not even empty space—could we create a universe using only math? Irreverent and boundlessly creative, The Big Bang of Numbers invites us to try.

In this new mathematical origin story, mathematician and novelist Manil Suri creates a natural progression of ideas needed to design our world, starting with numbers and continuing through geometry, algebra, and beyond. He reveals the secret lives of real and imaginary numbers, teaches them to play abstract games with real-world applications, discovers unexpected patterns that connect humble lifeforms to enormous galaxies, and explores mathematical underpinnings for randomness and beauty. With evocative examples ranging from multidimensional crochet to the Mona Lisa's asymmetrical smile, as well as ingenious storytelling that helps illuminate complex concepts like infinity and relativity, The Big Bang of Numbers charts a playful, inventive course to existence. Mathematics, Suri shows, might best be understood not as something we invent to explain Nature, but as the source of all creation, whose directives Nature tries to obey as best she can.

©2022 Manil Suri (P)2022 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Why math explains the world

Witty writing and tails of adventure? How can a math book accomplish such feats? As you learn here, it is because math is so much better than the computations forced on you in grade school. This book is about how to build the universe from mathematical axioms (and you’ll learn what those are), and along the way you learn to see the beauty in math. If more people read this book, we’d have a lot more math majors!

Great for the right audience

It's a good development of number theory and some related concepts. The author definitely has an unbearable quirkiness. I often was left screaming to myself, wishing he would get to the point!

The narrator dampened the author's quirkiness in some ways, but also somewhat magnified them! I feel this narrator was as good a choice as could've been made, given the author's quirks.

Overall it was worth a listen.