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WORK TITLE: The Call of the Primes
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1956
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: Irish
Bio: http://www.maa.org/press/books/the-magic-numbers-of-the-professor * http://euro-math-soc.eu/review/call-primes
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2007031499
HEADING: O’Shea, Owen, 1956-
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010 __ |a n 2007031499
040 __ |a DLC |b eng |e rda |c DLC |d DLC
046 __ |f 1956
100 1_ |a O’Shea, Owen, |d 1956-
670 __ |a The magic numbers of the professor, c2007: |b t.p. (Owen O’Shea) p. 165 (b. 1956, Cobh, County Cork, Ireland)
670 __ |a The call of the primes, surprising patterns,peculiar puzzles, and other marvels of mathematics, 2016: |b ECIP t.p. (Owen O’Shea) data view (b. May 21, 1956; co-author of The Magic numbers of the professor, and fifteen articles in the Journal of recreational mathematics; he is employed by the Irish Government’s Department of Defence)
953 __ |a jp43 |b jp18
PERSONAL
Born May 21, 1956, in Cobb, Ireland.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Works for Irish Government’s Department of Defence.
AVOCATIONS:Mathematical magic, science, astronomy, nature, philosophy, poetry, conjuring, word play, and history.
WRITINGS
Contributor to journals, including Journal of Recreational Mathematics.
SIDELIGHTS
Owen O’Shea is a recreational mathematics enthusiast—recreational mathematics encompassing puzzles, games, and other applications of math intended primarily for amusement. While employed in Ireland’s Department of Defence, he is also a frequent contributor to the Journal of Recreational Mathematics. His books on the subject include The Magic Numbers of the Professor, written with Underwood Dudley, and The Call of the Primes: Surprising Patterns, Peculiar Puzzles, and Other Marvels of Mathematics.
The Magic Numbers of the Professor
This book uses the device of having a fictional American professor, Richard Stein, visit O’Shea in Ireland, where the two discuss ideas that O’Shea then incorporates into a newspaper column. The topics they cover include numerical curiosities and coincidences that relate to historical events, such as the First and Second World Wars, the Apollo 11 moon landing, the U.S.-Iraq war, and the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. They also deal with unusual properties of numbers themselves—for instance, the fact that eight and nine are the only squared and cubed numbers that occur consecutively, or little-known information about the number twenty-three.
Some reviewers considered The Magic Numbers of the Professor engaging and enlightening. “The book is fascinating and uniquely entertaining,” remarked a critic writing on the European Mathematical Society’s Web site. Readers, the critic continued, will learn “a broad variety of surprising new facts.” Matt Parker, a contributor to Plus Magazine‘s online edition, had a few quibbles, although his assessment was generally positive. “It is a shame that the book is not more explicit about when it is indulging in tongue-in-cheek numerology, as opposed to real mathematics,” Parker wrote, but he added: “This complaint aside, there was not a single chapter that didn’t have me reaching for a pen to try some of the mathematics out for myself. The breadth of topics is impressive, from proposition bets to magic squares, and everyone will find something to whet their mathematical curiosity.”
The Call of the Primes
In The Call of the Primes, O’Shea deals with prime numbers—those divisible only by themselves and the number one—but much more as well. These include the number sequences compiled by French mathematician Edouard Lucas and the Italian Leonardo of Pisa, known as the Lucas and Fibonacci numbers respectively; magic squares—a square divided into smaller squares, with a number in each, arranged so that the figures add up to the same number horizontally, vertically, or diagonally; and the Monty Hall problem. The latter is named after the original host of the TV game show Let’s Make a Deal, and refers to a challenge presented to contestants, determining which of three boxes contains a valuable prize—and if a contestant, having made a choice, should switch it after the possibilities are narrowed to two. As in The Magic Numbers of the Professor, O’Shea introduces a fictional expert into the narrative—in this case, a Dr. Ming Cong, who comments on the information O’Shea has presented.
Several critics saw much popular appeal in The Call of the Primes.“The curious of all ages, 15 or 16 year-old pupils thinking of engaging in more advanced studies will find this both informative and entertaining, and then oldies like myself can use it working through some of the formulae to keep our brains active,” related Jonathan Cowie, writing online at SF2 Concatenation. Adhemar Bultheel, a contributor to the European Mathematical Society’s Web site, thought O’Shea devoted to much attention to phenomena that are simply numerical patterns, which do little to advance an understanding of mathematics. Bultheel, however, allowed that “if you are interested in mathematical issues and puzzles of the mathematical type, you will certainly enjoy this book even if you have only a minimal background.” A Publishers Weekly commentator offered strong praise for the book, saying it “strips away the mystique of math to reveal both its practical uses and its pleasures.” O’Shea’s tone, “comfortably matter-of-fact and lighthearted,” makes the work accessible and appropriate for readers new to recreational mathematics, the reviewer added.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, February 29, 2016, review of The Call of the Primes: Surprising Patterns, Peculiar Puzzles, and Other Marvels of Mathematics, p. 56.
ONLINE
European Mathematical Society Web site, http://euro-math-soc.eu/ (September 30, 2011), review of The Magic Numbers of the Professor; (May 7, 2016), Adhemar Bultheel, review of The Call of the Primes.
Mathematical Association of America Web site, https://www.maa.org/ (September 5, 2016), brief biography.
Plus Magazine Web site, https://plus.maths.org/ (March 1, 2009), Matt Parker, review of The Magic Numbers of the Professor.
Portland Book Review, http://portlandbookreview.com/ (July 21, 2016), Howard Leighton, review of The Call of the Primes.
SF2 Concatenation, http://www.concatenation.org/ (January 15, 2017), Jonathan Cowie, review of The Call of the Primes.*
The Magic Numbers of the Professor
The Magic Numbers of the Professor
By Owen O’Shea and Underwood Dudley
Catalog Code: MNOP
Print ISBN: 978-0-88385-557-7
184 pp., Hardbound, 2007
List Price: $15.00
Member Price: $11.25
Series: Spectrum
BUY PRINT BOOK
The Professor in Owen O’Shea’s book is the imaginary American Richard Stein. As Owen O’Shea and the Professor travel through Ireland, O’Shea notes the Professor’s collection of amazing magic numbers in fascinating detail. His mathematical curiosities are wide ranging, concerning the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania to coincidences about Apollo 11 to the first moon walk to new numerical curiosities. The new curiosities, among many others, center on Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy, the USA and Ireland, the two World Wars, the King James version of the Bible, and James Joyce.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Martin Gardner
Introduction
1. Digit Curiosities
2. The 9/11 atrocities
3. The professor speaks on the U.S. and Ireland
4. Curiosities in armed conflicts
5. Number and word palindromes
6. The U.S—Iraq War
7. The number of the beast
8. Curios of the Lusitania and other curious matters
9. Wordplay and other curiosities
10. New coincidences on Lincoln and Kennedy
11. Dart and card curiosities
12. The professor gives some number patterns
13. The King James Bible and some currency curiosities
14. The professor at the university
About the Authors
Index
About the Authors
Owen O’Shea was born in 1956 in Cobh, County Cork, Ireland. Owen (and his twin brother Michael) was the youngest of a family of 11 children. Owen has said that his parents and family lived on a modest income, but that his parents were hardworking and honest. His father was a non-commissioned officer in the Irish Naval Service. Owen’s mother was a psychiatric nurse in London before she was married.
Owen O’Shea is a single person. He is employed as a civilian employee in the Department of Defense in Ireland. In his younger days Owen lectured occasionally on recreational mathematics to university students. He also frequently voluntarily assisted various people in his community (particularly senior citizens) to complete forms in the areas of social welfare, pensions and tax to ensure that these people obtained their legitimate entitlements from the Irish State.
Owen is the author of a number of newspaper articles that appeared in Ireland in recent years. These articles ranged from such diverse topics as to how the date of Easter is calculated to a biographical sketch of Martin Luther King, Jr. Owen has a wide range of hobbies. His first love is, of course, recreational mathematics. He is also interested in collecting and spotting strange coincidences. His other interests include mathematical magic, science, astronomy, nature, philosophy, poetry, conjuring, word play, and history.
This is Owen’s first book. He says that he will be very pleased if those who read this book enjoy it as much as he has enjoyed writing it.
Underwood Dudley earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Carnegie Institute of Technology and his doctorate (in number theory) from the University of Michigan. He taught briefly at the Ohio State University and then at DePauw University from 1967-2004. Woody has written six books and many papers, reviews, and commentaries. He has served in many editing positions, including editor of The Pi Mu Epsilon Journal, 1993-96 and The College Mathematics Journal, 1999-2003. He is widely known and admired for his speaking ability—especially his ability to find humor in mathematics. He was the PME J. Sutherland Frame lecturer in 1992 and the MAA Polya lecturer in 1995-96. Woody’s contributions to mathematics have earned him many awards, including the Trevor Evans award, from the MAA in 1996, the Distinguished Service Award, from the Indiana Section of the MAA in 2000, and the Meritorious Service Award, from the MAA in 2004.
Book Series:
Spectrum
Quoted in Sidelights: “strips away the mystique of math to reveal both its practical uses and its pleasures.” “comfortably matter-of-fact and lighthearted,”
The Call of the Primes: Surprising Patterns,
Peculiar Puzzles, and Other Marvels of
Mathematics
Publishers Weekly.
263.9 (Feb. 29, 2016): p56.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Call of the Primes: Surprising Patterns, Peculiar Puzzles, and Other Marvels of Mathematics
Owen O'Shea. Prometheus Books, $19 trade paper (270p) ISBN 978-1-63388-148-8
Exploring the challenge of sudoku and the best strategy for winning the grand prize on Let's Make a Deal,
O'Shea, a regular contributor to the Journal of Recreational Mathematics, strips away the mystique of math
to reveal both its practical uses and its pleasures. Each of the book's 16 short entries exudes the playful spirit
of Martin Gardner's celebrated Scientific American column, "Mathematical Games," and is sprinkled with
historical tidbits: for example, the properties of "magic squares" in modern sudoku puzzles echo those once
used as protective amulets and good luck charms. There's little need for more than basic addition and
subtraction to follow O'Shea's discussions as he writes of n, primes, and triangular numbers. The
transcendental number e becomes much less mysterious when O'Shea demonstrates how it's used for
calculating exponential growth and decay in such phenomena as compound interest, radiocarbon dating, and
population growth. Similarly, the apparent magic of coincidence becomes transparent through the lens of
probability theory. O'Shea's discussion is comfortably matter-of-fact and lighthearted, and each chapter ends
with references for further study. Readers curious about recreational mathematics can enjoy this book
without fear of getting lost in the weeds. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Call of the Primes: Surprising Patterns, Peculiar Puzzles, and Other Marvels of Mathematics."
Publishers Weekly, 29 Feb. 2016, p. 56+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA446636068&it=r&asid=55ec9c28c1c4974742c0449d7ce78281.
Accessed 13 Aug. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A446636068
The Call of the Primes: Surprising Patterns, Peculiar Puzzles, and Other Marvels of Mathematics by Owen O’Shea
by Howard Leighton on July 21, 2016
1
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Publisher: Prometheus Books
Formats: Paperback, eBook, Kindle
Purchase: Powell’s | Amazon | IndieBound | iBooks
The Call of The Primes: Surprising Patterns, Peculiar Puzzles, and other Marvels of Mathematics is structured into chapters covering various mathematical concepts that many may have been exposed to or heard of over the course of their education. Many of these present quite a few interesting details and observations of numbers, relationships, discoveries, theorems, and equations, which are enjoyable. Some chapter titles include the numbers pi, e, phi, the square root of -1 and the square root of 2. Others are the Fibonacci and Lucas sequence, the Monty Hall conundrum, and square of numbers.
While throughout the book there are the interesting details and observations about the mathematical concepts, two things become apparent. First, this is a book for those with more than just a passing interest in the subjects presented. Very quickly on almost all subjects presented there is rapid progression into equations. It is recognized when dealing with numbers that one should expect that to occur, but unless you have a significant interest in exploring them and the beauty mathematicians may see in them, it is suggested this book is probably not for you. The second issue is the use of a “friend” who is invited at the end of a number of chapters (by e-mail communication) to add to the subject of the chapter and make observations about the preceding presentation. This individual is describe as being a numerologist, located on the west coast (unclear if this is Ireland or the United States), and is known as Dr. Ming Cong. If one wishes to inquire about Dr. Cong, may your success be better than this reviewer’s attempts. There are other contributors to the book, the second with significant training and background in mathematics. The primary author appears to be interested in numbers, their origins, the equations, and has written some articles including a book on similar findings but appears to be an unknown otherwise. As stated earlier, the true audience for this book is likely those with more than just a passing interest in these topics.
Quoted in Sidelights: “The curious of all ages, 15 or 16 year-old pupils thinking of engaging in more advanced studies will find this both informative and entertaining, and then oldies like myself can use it working through some of the formulae to keep our brains active,”
Non-Fiction Reviews
The Call of the Primes
Surprising patterns, peculiar puzzles and other marvels of mathematics
(2016) O'Shea, Prometheus Books, £16.99 / Can$20.00 / US$19, trdpbk, 330pp, ISBN 978-1-633-88148-8
Given this is maths, this is a surprisingly absorbing book to which I warmed as I traversed each chapter.
You may have gathered that I began reading this anticipating something of a struggle, and indeed there was as I had pre-judged this book by – not so much its cover as – its title. I anticipated that this book would be all about prime numbers, their discovery, their irrationality, their importance in cryptography, and the various different types of primes through to pseudoprimes. In fact I was so convinced myself of this that I kept putting off picking this up and starting to read.
As it happens, 'The Call of the Primes' is an early chapter in this book but other chapters are on Pi, 'E', the square root of minus 1, and other mathematical concepts, all very intriguing. What this book is not (as its title initially suggested to me) are surprising patterns, peculiar puzzles and marvels arising out of primes; what this book is, is a quick tour de force of surprising patterns, peculiar puzzles and marvels including primes!
Confusion over, I began to enjoy the book and became quite engrossed. My favourite chapter was 'The Monty Hall problem and other deceptive Puzzles in Probability Theory'. Indeed it contains one of the best explanations of the Monty Hall Problem I have encountered since Postmentier's Magnificent Mistakes in Mathematics (also published by Prometheus). If you are not familiar with this problem, it stems from a game played on a 1960s,US TV show hosted by one Monty Hall. The problem consists of a contestant being presented with three boxes and being told that one box contains a million dollars put there by the host. The contestant then is asked to chose a box. before the box is opened, the show's host then decides to give the contestant a clue as to which box contains the million by opening one box he knows does not contain the million and so now the contestant has only two boxes to choose from, not three. The question is should the contestant change their decision or stick with their original choice? Or will this make no difference?
Now it has to be said (I cannot leave you in too much suspense) that there is a specific answer – that O'Shea explains – to this problem that doubles the chance of the contestant winning. This problem also (though the author does not say it) neatly illustrate how an observer's act of observing impacts on perceptions of reality. And the answer, when you discover it you may feel is controversial and indeed when, in the 1960s it was explained even some (fortunately a minority but still a significant one) of university maths lecturers got it wrong!
The level of maths required to enjoy this book is (in British terms) that of mid-secondary school: for pupils aged around 15 or 16. There are some equations but none-are more advanced than this O-level (GCSE) level of maths understanding. (Things might be different in the USA as they don't study maths; they do something called 'math' instead, but I'm guessing my 15 or 16 year-old's comprehension estimate still applies.)
And if like me your maths school days are nearly half a century ago don't worry, this book is still perfectly understandable.
So to whom will this book appeal? The curious of all ages, 15 or 16 year-old pupils thinking of engaging in more advanced studies will find this both informative and entertaining, and then oldies like myself can use it working through some of the formulae to keep our brains active. Even without all of this it is an entertaining read. Those into numerology will find the e-mails the author cites, that he received from his friend Ming Cong, a treasure trove of mathematical coincidences. For example, if you create a code converting letters of the alphabet into numbers starting with A = 1, B = 2, etc., then add up the corresponding numbers of the words TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY ONE you get 251.
If only my maths teachers taught us some of what O'Shea gives us in The Call of the Primes, then who knows, I might have gone into physics rather than the natural sciences. (Leave that thought alone; perhaps it's best not to go there.)
I'll give The Call of the Primes a decided thumbs up, thankful that my digit's proportions possibly being close to that of a Golden Ratio is most likely coincidental. I hope so, because reading this one can't help but feel that God is a mathematician.
Quoted in Sidelights: “if you are interested in mathematical issues and puzzles of the mathematical type, you will certainly enjoy this book even if you have only a minimal background.”
The call of the primes
This is another book written to promote and popularize mathematics to laymen and unbelievers. In most cases, the author of such books is a mathematician who has to be careful not to introduce technical terms without explanation. This time the author is not a mathematician, which helps of course to guarantee that the book really stays at a level accessible to anyone. As an example, at some point it is even explained what a difference is between a conjecture and a theorem. Owen O'Shea is employed by the Irish Department of Defence and he has published a similar book before The Magic Numbers of the Professor (2007), and published several papers on recreational mathematics. So he has had some training.
The topics discussed are the classics: prime numbers, Fibonacci and Lucas sequences and Pascal's triangle, Pythagorean triples, triangular numbers, magic squares, the Monty Hall problem, and transcendental numbers: φ, π, e, √2, and the complex √-1. Most of these are also discussed in several other books. The lovers of this kind of books will recognize large parts, but there are some exceptions.
Each of these topics is elaborated in a separate chapter. The keyword throughout the book is "patterns". The strategy is always the same. First some elements are written by the author and it always ends with comments and additions by Dr. Cong, a numerologist and obviously a friend of the author. O'Shea gives his biography at the end of chapter 2: a mathematical child prodigy originating from China, who immigrated to the USA. A dramatic ski accident prevented that he became a professional mathematician. Instead he participated in a traveling carnival where he took on the nickname Dr. Cong. The emails of Dr. Cong that are sometimes included use a style and assumes a level of readership that is suspiciously similar to what the O'Shea wrote, which blatantly confirms that he is just O'Shea's alter ego. Also in The Magic Numbers of the Professor the `Professor' is a fictitious character.
The comments of Dr. Cong usually start by saying that the text is interesting but... and then he adds some extras to the topic discussed. His part is sometimes as long as the 'original text' that he is commenting on. However, he also adds (in my view very un-mathematical) numerological curiosities. For example the lo shu is an ancient Chinese 3 by 3 magic square that was exposed on the back of a turtle with the rows 4 9 2, 3 5 7, and 8 1 6. One of Cong's comments is that it refers to 666, the number of the beast because
4
3
+
9
2
+
2
1
+
8
3
+
1
2
+
6
1
=
666
43+92+21+83+12+61=666. Or he comments in the third chapter that the first two letters of Pythagoras are the 16th and the 25th in the alphabet while the smallest Pythagorean triple is (9,16,25). A genuine mathematician's reaction to such statements would probably be: So what? And there are several other instances where dates, hours and other numbers can be combined to give so-called curious coincidences. In fact, there is a whole chapter on such "coincidences" which in my opinion diminishes the value of the book. These are indeed patterns, and it may attract extra readers who see tarot-like proofs in almost anything of whatever ethereal truth that is bestowed upon us by fate. It may (and should) shy away any readership of (potential) mathematicians. Of course it does make sense to explain that some coincidences are not as curious as one might think. For example the probability that two people in a group celebrate their birthday on the same day of the year is surprisingly high. That can be explained by simple statistics, but number fetishism is not mathematics. With this book, it is O'Shea's intention to make readers enthusiast for mathematics and take up interest in studying more of it. Solving a puzzle or finding out how a certain trick works may indeed be helpful. And there is indeed something to say about the recognition of patterns, but only if there is some rationality behind it that has to be discovered. But this kind of mysticism is a bad idea, or at least gives a very wrong impression of what mathematics is about. It is very easy to make such things up. For example, the figure in which Einstein's equation
E
2
=
(
m
c
2
)
2
+
(
p
c
)
2
E2=(mc2)2+(pc)2 is represented on a Pythagoras triangle happens to be numbered 3.14, and moreover
3
1
+
4
=
7
31+4=7, and 3.14 approximates π with 2 decimals in the fractional part, put 7 and 2 together and lo and behold, the figure appears on page 72. What a coincidence! But it is roaring nonsense.
There are of course also quite nice things to say about this book. First of all there is its very elementary approach, but it is still discussing many mathematical objects and ideas. Sometimes they are only mentioned or briefly touched upon. Not really analytic proofs of course, but sometimes strong suggestions and indications are given for limiting value. Similarly we meet also Einstein's relativity theory as I mentioned above, but also several different geometric proofs of the Pythagoras theorem, continued fractions, Platonism, complex numbers,
i
i
ii, Schrödinger's equation, Stirling's asymptotic formula for the factorial, and many others.
The author classifies his book under recreational mathematics. As he writes in the introduction, its purpose is to be entertaining and at the same time educational. He is obviously an admirer of Martin Gardner. But O'Shea's attitude towards mathematics is not as bad as I might have suggested above. To illustrate his vision on mathematics and how he sees his contributions in this book, I can quote what he writes on page 121. After it has been suggested (by numerical evidence) that the n-th root of the n-th Fibonacci number tends to φ (the golden ratio) as n tends to infinity, O'Shea writes "Of course there are those who ask what these curiosities tell us about our world. My answer to these questions is: They perhaps tell us nothing! Mathematics in itself does not explain our universe. Yes mathematics can be used in physics to explain how some parts of the universe operate. That is truly marvelous. But that is not why mathematics exists. Mathematics exists in its own right. It may well be the only reality. To find explanations on how the world works, I suggest one should study physics."
There are a few of problems or puzzles to solve (but not many) which get solutions at the end of the chapter, and for the hungry reader there is a list of references to read more. Thus, if you are interested in mathematical issues and puzzles of the mathematical type, you will certainly enjoy this book even if you have only a minimal background. Just be aware that numerology is as alien to mathematics as penguins are to the Amazon jungle.
Reviewer:
Adhemar Bultheel
Book details
This is a book on recreational/popular mathematics. Not on magic and card tricks but with proper mathematical topics, Written at a really low level to be accessible for any layperson. There are however also a lot of patterns exposed that are of a numerological nature and these are in my opinion senseless observations in this context.
Author: Owen O'Shea
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published:
2016
“It is a shame that the book is not more explicit about when it is indulging in tongue-in-cheek numerology, as opposed to real mathematics,” “This complaint aside, there was not a single chapter that didn’t have me reaching for a pen to try some of the mathematics out for myself. The breadth of topics is impressive, from proposition bets to magic squares, and everyone will find something to whet their mathematical curiosity.”
'The magic numbers of the Professor'
Review by
Matt Parker
Submitted by plusadmin on March 1, 2009
book cover
The magic numbers of the Professor
by Owen O'Shea and Underwood Dudley
The Magic Numbers of the Professor revolves around a fictional professor and a huge range of magical numbers. Written in a narrative style, the book documents a series of visits the Professor makes from America to Ireland to visit Owen O'Shea, the author of both this book and a fictional column within the story. The Professor provides ideas for this column and the book largely follows the conversations the two have while discussing various numbers and other mathematical curiosities.
As a book on recreational mathematics, it comes with the highest recommendation: an introduction by Martin Gardner himself, the father of the genre. It then goes into a rapid-fire approach, spraying the reader with endless numbers and various levels of explanation of why they are interesting. The theme of each chapter is centred around the location of O'Shea's meeting with the Professor, and so the mathematics discussed feels no need to attach itself to any one area.
The numbers presented fall into two categories: those that are interesting because of their number theoretic properties (8 and 9 are the only cube and square numbers that are consecutive) and those that are coincidentally linked with a well known event or person (the Apollo 11 mission landed on the Moon on 20/7 and then landed back on Earth at latitude 13 North and longitude 169 West: subtracting gives 20 - 7 = 13, which has 169 as its square). Unfortunately, there is very little distinction between the two types of interesting numbers — it is a shame that the book is not more explicit about when it is indulging in tongue-in-cheek numerology, as opposed to real mathematics. As the Professor correctly states, "all numbers are striking in one way or another," but you do have to wonder if the interesting fact that 202 = (202 + 202)/2 needs the context that 202 people died in the 2002 Bali bombing.
This complaint aside, there was not a single chapter that didn't have me reaching for a pen to try some of the mathematics out for myself. The breadth of topics is impressive, from proposition bets to magic squares, and everyone will find something to whet their mathematical curiosity. Dotted throughout each chapter are various challenges to the reader, which require only a GCSE level of understanding of mathematics and a lot of persistence. These challenges normally take the form of finding extra examples or instances of the maths discussed, such as another way to write 1922 using all nine digits in order (-1 + 234 + 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 + 9, as I eventually worked out). There are full solutions, along with recommendations for further reading, provided at the conclusion of each chapter.
As the book is published by The Mathematical Association of America, there is the expected US bias, complete with a non-mathematical look at different pictures that can be made with a one dollar bill. However, you can forgive the authors for some of their more self-indulgent moments when the overall book is as enjoyable as this is. The introduction to the book suggests that the best approach to reading it is to consume it slowly, one chapter at a time, which is very good advice. If you gradually work your way through the story of the Professor and his magic numbers, you will find some truly fantastic pieces of unarguably interesting mathematics.
Book details:
The magic numbers of the Professor
Owen O'Shea and Underwood Dudley
hardback — 168 pages (2007)
The Mathematical Association of America
ISBN-10: 0883855577
ISBN-13: 978-0883855577
About the author
Matt Parker is an enthusiastic mathematician whose goal in life is to make more people excited about mathematics. He studied mathematics and physics in Australia before training to be a teacher and working in both Australia and the UK. Matt now writes and speaks about engaging mathematics and his favourite number is currently 28.
Quoted in Sidelights: “The book is fascinating and uniquely entertaining,” “a broad variety of surprising new facts.”
The Magic Numbers of the Professor
The title, an obvious gentle tribute to Martin Gardner’s The Magic Numbers of Dr. Matrix, gives the reader a hint as to what type of recreational mathematics one should expect in this book. However, the book is quite unique. At the beginning, one of the authors Owen O’Shea meets an imaginary person, a most amazing man called Richard Stein, nicknamed The Professor. Together they travel through Ireland visiting places such as Mallow or Carrowkeel for various peculiar reasons while, on the way, the professor informs O’Shea about remarkable numerical coincidences that he seems to be able to find literally everywhere. The size of The Professor’s collection of such things is unbelievable. His curious numerical findings range from ancient history through the year 1776 and the 1915 sinking of Lusitania, to the 9/11 atrocities and the Iraq war.
The reader, who might think he has already heard everything about the Number of the Beast or all possible coincidences between Lincoln and Kennedy, will be surprised by a broad variety of surprising new facts that have not been published before. Do you know what temperature it is if it was zero degrees yesterday and today it is twice as cold? Any idea how many different ways a US dollar can be changed? Can you guess how big a deck of cards is needed for its number of rearrangements to equal the age of the universe in seconds? Do you want to know some intriguing facts about the number 23? Easy. Just consult The Professor! The book is fascinating and uniquely entertaining though it should not be read as a novel. The author warns the reader in the introduction that not too many of the items in the book should be consumed at the same time. That is good news; the joy brought to the reader by the book then lasts longer.