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Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them
Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them
Apr 21, 2025 6:01 AM

Author:Tony Padilla

Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them

What are the mysterious numbers that unlock the secrets of the universe?

In Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them, leading theoretical physicist and YouTube star Antonio Padilla takes us on an irreverent cosmic tour of nine of the most extraordinary numbers in physics. These include Graham's number, which is so large that if you thought about it in the wrong way, your head would collapse into a singularity; TREE(3), whose finite value could never be reached before the universe reset itself; and 10^{-120}, which measures the desperately unlikely balance of energy the universe needs to exist. . .

Leading us down the rabbit hole to the inner workings of reality, Padilla demonstrates how these unusual numbers are the key to unlocking such mind-bending phenomena as black holes, entropy and the problem of the cosmological constant, which shows that our two best ways of understanding the universe contradict one another. Combining cutting-edge science with an entertaining cosmic quest, Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them is an electrifying, head-twisting guide to the most fundamental truths of the universe.

Reviews

An exceptional compilation of modern mathematics and its real-world applications... A fast-paced and dramatic telling of the history of mathematics that is ultimately concerned with convincing us why we should care... Perusing this book will leave readers with awe, enough fun facts for many cocktail parties, and a deep appreciation for mathematicians like Padilla who can explain how understanding a googolplex leads us to the existence of doppelgängers

—— Brianne Kane , Scientific American

An irreverent tour of extraordinary numbers in physics, big, small and bafflingly infinite. Be amazed as physicist and YouTube star Tony Padilla reveals the inner workings of reality

—— New Scientist

This delightful book purports to be about numbers, but is really a window onto the astonishing scope and scale of the universe in which we live. You will be amazed at the mind-bending ideas science has proposed in order to grasp reality, and be impressed that our minds are able to bend that far

—— Sean Carroll, author of SOMETHING DEEPLY HIDDEN

This is an extraordinary book. Tony Padilla has been able to weave a remarkable set of mathematical facts into a mesmerising story that kept me gripped throughout. He has an intensity and passion that I haven't seen for a long time in popular science

—— Pedro G. Ferreira, author of THE PERFECT THEORY

It was said of the famous Indian mathematician Ramanujan that he knew every number as his personal friend. If you'd like to get to know some of the most charismatic of these characters then Antonio Padilla has written a beautiful Who's Who of the world of numbers and their role in the make-up of our universe

—— Marcus du Sautoy, author of THINKING BETTER

I drank in the book this past weekend, in two warm slugs

—— Jennifer Senior , Atlantic

[Atwood's] intelligence shines off the page with such intensity it makes you blink

—— Rose Shepherd , Saga Magazine

The mighty Margaret Atwood writes about everything from granola to Trump

—— Robbie Millen , The Times, *Books to Look Out For 2022*

Atwood's third collection of essays...does not fail to impress... This is one to dip into again and again, and is likely to remain relevant many years into the future

—— UK Press Syndication

Atwood...always...gets right to the heart of the matter... More than 50 pieces display her astonishing range... Each is written with her trademark wit

—— Erica Wagner , Harper's Bazaar

Atwood is generous and unguarded - exactly what you would hope of her... frank, honest and good company

—— Shahidha Bari , Guardian

A kaleidoscope look at life and literature from the perspective of one of our finest writers... Her humour and breath of knowledge make this a collection to open your mind - and make you laugh

—— Zoe West , Woman & Home

[Atwood's] prescience, her wicked sense of humour, her generosity and her appetite for work at all on flamboyant display in Burning Questions

—— Mary Norris , Times Literary Supplement

Atwood's third volume of essays... [is] shot through with wisdom and wit

—— Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2022*

This week, the Supreme Court nominated Margaret Atwood for a Nobel Prize in Prescience

—— Washington Post

Hardman provides an admirable account of the struggles of the [health service] . . . She is lucid, fair and unpolemical

—— Andrew Gimson , Conservative Home

A scholarly study of T. H. Huxley and his grandson [and a] guide to the history of evolutionary thinking... it's impressive that Bashford can command both these types of writing with equal authority.

—— Stefan Collini , London Review of Books

How did a biological theory become such a central part of modern life? ... Bashford traces a cultural phenomenon that has profoundly shaped society and revolutionized our understanding of what it means to be human.

—— Stuart Mathieson , Nature

It would be difficult to overstate the debt of gratitude owed to the Huxley dynasty for our knowledge of evolution in all its forms. Bashford narrates the fascinating story of 200 years o modern science and culture through one family history.

—— Jules Stewart , Geographical Magazine

Bashford has crafted a masterful biography of Thomas Henry Huxley, patriarch of an evolutionary dynasty, his inheritor and grandson Julian, and the families that sustained them. Interweaving their public contributions to science and private poems, she deftly charts a generational quest to understand and articulate the human condition.

—— Erika Lorraine Milam, author of Creatures of Cain

Alison Bashford's intimate story of the Huxley clan reveals the ambiguities that arise if we apply modern values to past heroes. Here science, society and personalities interact to bring the past alive.

—— Peter Bowler, author of Progress Unchained: Ideas of Evolution, Human History and the Future

Ed Yong's fascinating new book on the complex behaviours of creatures uncovers a universe of unfathomable beauty... Not since Oliver Morton's masterpiece of popular science Eating the Sun (2007) has a book so persuasively made the case that the Earth is greater than we know

—— New Statesman

A wonderful, wonder-full book

—— Literary Review

Both eye-opening and humbling

—— Radio Times

Remarkable... a delight, a book that prompts awe at the world around us

—— Sunday Times, *Summer Reads of 2022*

A tour of our own world as we may never experience it

—— Geography, *Book of the Month*

This book will reignite your sense of wonder and appreciation for our amazing planet

—— Woman's Own Magazine

Immaculately researched, elegantly written, iconoclastic and compulsively readable

—— The Times Literary Supplement

[Yong's] skills are on full display here, as he clearly and succinctly sketches out complex scientific and philosophical ideas in terms that are understandable for the lay reader

—— Prospect

Yong ... has a rare ability to break down overwhelming amounts of information into compelling, digestible detail. His An Immense World will make you question everything you thought you knew about how non-human animals perceive our shared world.

—— Heromag

One of President Barack Obama's 'favourite books of 2022'

—— President Barack Obama

Remarkable ... manages to be both a celebration of our species' genius for observation while also revealing how narrow and partial our 'sense' of things. Yong reveals how life is much greater than we can images.

—— New Statesman, *Books of the Year 2022*

Yong's colourful, character-filled writing reveals a multidimensional world that has hitherto remained hidden to us

—— Guardian, *Books of the Year*

This book welcomes us into previously unfathomable dimensions - the world as it is truly perceived by other animals

—— The Week Bookshop, *The best of 2022*

Ed Yong's book is a celebration of sights and sounds, smells and tastes, and the ways different animals exist on the planet we all share. Yong blends scientific study and elegant prose to transform textbook fodder into an excting read

—— Time Magazine

A brilliant story about life's most challenging puzzles: friendship, family, love, loss. By turns funny, poignant, wistful, and occasionally devastating

—— NATHAN HILL, author of THE NIX

The sort of book that comes around once in a decade - a magnificent feat of storytelling. It is a book about the intersection between love and friendship, work and vocation, and the impossible and relentless pull of our own west-bound destinies

—— REBECCA SERLE, author of In Five Years

Sam and Sadie's relationship is pure wizardry; it's deep and complex, transcending anything we might call a love story. Whether you care about video games or not is beside the point. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is the novel you've been waiting to read

—— Book Page, Chika Gujarathi

I feel completely changed by this book from Gabrielle Zevin. It's a book about love - about friendship, but really it transcends the borders of storytelling. My heart ached when I finished it. Truly unforgettable

—— CATHERINE CHO, author of Inferno

The perfect engrossing holiday read...beautiful and heartbreaking

—— The Times, *Summer Reads of 2023*

Zevin's delight in her characters, their qualities, and their projects sprinkles a layer of fairy dust over the whole enterprise. Sure to enchant even those who have never played a video game in their lives, with instant cult status for those who have.

—— Kirkus

A one-of-a-kind achievement

—— Publishers Weekly

A particularly memorable and compelling kind of love story... [a] nuanced depiction of human connection over 30 years that will have you blinking back tears behind your sunglasses

—— Culture Whisper, *Summer Reads of 2022*

dazzling and intricately imagined

—— B&N Reads

Zevin's writing is like being put under a spell. She's kind of magical.

—— Liberty Hardy , WBEZ

Sure to enchant even those who have never played a video game in their lives, with instant cult status for those who have.

—— Kirkus

exhilarating

—— Smithsonian

engrossing

—— Wall Street Journal

delightful and absorbing . . . expansive and entertaining

—— Tom Bissell , New York Times

The go-to for your next hit of Nineties nostalgia; if you ever spent too long playing Donkey Kong, this one's for you

—— Evening Standard, *Summer Reads of 2022*

This is a boy meets girl story that is never a romance - though it is romantic . . . Their relationship is a joining of minds and of worlds that is both purer and sweeter than any base physical attraction

—— Pippa Bailey , Observer

Big-hearted, generous, intelligent and open to the complexities of life

—— Irish Independent

A novel that treasures the act of play and holds it sacred . . . the world of video games and video game development is just the landscape in which life plays out . . . Tomorrow is about love, above all things

—— Sarah Maria Griffin , Guardian

Delightful and absorbing

—— Tom Bissell , International New York Times

Teenagers of the 21st century are as likely to bond over video games as they are rock music or movies. Gabrielle Zevin's exhilarating, timely and emotive book is perhaps the first novel to truly get to grips with what this means

—— Guardian

Exhilarating... this is refreshingly original

—— Psychologies

It is the imaginary world of a game, a world Zevin describes with the addict's ardour, which forms a universe even the sturdiest parent or antediluvian book-lover will be enticed into.

—— Big Issue

Friendship, love, loyalty, violence in America and the magic of invented worlds. Gorgeous

—— People

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a special book -- one that transports readers fully, as games do their players, into its immaculately crafted world

—— The Times

Woven throughout are meditations on originality, appropriation, the similarities between video games and other forms of art, the liberating possibilities of inhabiting a virtual world, and the ways in which platonic love can be deeper and more rewarding - especially in the context of a creative partnership - than romance.

—— New Yorker

Zevin probes at many of the themes that energize video games as a medium: their narrative depth, their therapeutic value, their casual violence, their toxic industry. And the possibility of living a better life in a virtual world

—— Wired

Zevin has the ability to make you care about her creations within paragraphs of meeting them... whose fates I consistently worried about when I occasionally had to put the book aside.

—— Financial Times

[An] engrossing, delightful novel... Zevin has the ability to make you care about her creations within paragraphs of meeting them... [Tomorrow] is rich with characters whose intertwined fates power the narrative

—— Financial Times

This book, with its respect for craft-the craft of love and games, or loving games-will remind you of how abundant one life is, how lucky we are to keep each other in our memories forever.

—— Kotaku

[I] raced through this pure wonder of a book in a few days

—— NINA MINGYA POWLES, author of Small Bodies of Water

A 2022 book that everyone should read

—— Pandora Sykes , Stylist LIVE

A must-read

—— Neil Druckmann

Anyone who reads Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow can't stop talking about it

—— Stylist

Utterly beautiful and endlessly hopeful, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a love letter to life, friendship, and creativity

—— The Skinny, *Books of 2022*

[The] 2022 book that everyone should read

—— Pandora Sykes , Stylist Live

My #1 book to recommend . . . incredible, like The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon meets The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. It's about love and friendship and video games

—— Emma Straub

It feels right that the best video game novel out there is by a woman. Her story about the decades-long friendship and partnership between video game designers Sam and Sadie gets at so much about work, love and storytelling. It's a book that spawns great conversations.

—— Irenosen Okojie, author of Nudibranch

In following Sam and Sadie's journey from Massachusetts to California and into the imagined worlds of their games, Zevin writes the most precious kind of love story

—— Time Magazine, Best Novel of the Year

Zevin's writing is poetic, the plot is entertaining, moving and gripping and the nods to real life video games make it all feel incredibly real

—— Skinny, *Books of the Year*

Reading this is almost like an invitation from Zevin to enter a game...with every scene and moment so carefully constructed. Just brilliant

—— Skinny, *Books of the Year*

I loved it

—— Sarah Keyworth

A hugely enjoyable novel about lives and loves mediated by technology

—— Guardian, *Summer Reads of 2023*

This playful, accomplished novel is a poignant celebration of friendship, love - and gaming

—— Daily Mail

An engrossing coming-of-age story

—— Sunday Times, *Books of the Year*

Epic in scale, with unforgettable characters, it breaks you heart and puts it back together

—— Daily Express, *Books of the Year*
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