An Ode to Imagination

The book listens like a long poem and explains how our understanding of the world comes about through our imagination and understanding the maths that make up our world and is the key to understanding our place in the universe. As in any good poem it's probably best listened to by the author who wrote it. It did take me all of three minutes to realize that the author was a very good narrator and his speech patterns did take those three minutes for me to get used to. After that, I realize he was the best reader for the book.

The author really makes his work speak to me. For example, his explanation that Shakespeare at his core uses the "presence of the absence" makes me finally appreciate Shakespeare. Shakespeare was the first class of students in England to accept zero (cipher) and use Arabic numbers including zero. The existence of nothing (cipher) has consequences. Shakespeare helped make the world aware of that.

Another example, Abraham Lincoln loved Euclid's elements and in his debates with Douglas, say, would speak as if he was quoting from Euclid to make his points. Another example, the author states Pythagoras was the first to realize the power of the imaginary over tradition (myths and the empirical) and why that was so important for understanding our place in the universe.

The book is full of gems like the above examples. I never got lost while listening to the math stuff in the book, sometimes I would get lost on foreign words such as how the Icelandic use many different words for the smaller numbers.

Those who are not good with math and numbers will follow the major points. Imagination and how we use is understandable by all listeners.

7 people found this helpful

One of those times the author shouldn't narrate.

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The information was fun to listen to, but the narration was extremely hard. He has a British accent but lives in France. This makes him very hard to listen to and at times hard to understand.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Often times the narrator brings an energy to the book or an excitement for the content, in this case he was to hard to understand for that to come through. I spent most of the time trying to get past his accents.

Any additional comments?

I would recommend this book for someone to read but not listen to.

5 people found this helpful

Disappointing

Numbers are fascinating, and I was expecting to be fascinated by the author's intriguing revelations concerning the universe and how it unfolds mathematically. Instead, the book seems more like unconnected ramblings, a series of short stories about the author's life and some significant events in his life that are connected to his view of mathematical proportions. The author's dialect (speech impediment?) makes the book difficult to listen to. I found myself counting the number of consonants he cannot pronounce, instead of becoming fascinated with - counting. It could be that the book is much more interesting if read at one's own speed, and in one's own "head" voice, rather than listened to at the narrator's speed, and speech.

4 people found this helpful

Shows the poetry of maths, and the maths of poetry

A wonderful collection of touching views on the world and how it can be described (or how it emerges?) by numbers. The whole is greater than its part, filrting this way with infinity... I learned many things in this book, and I felt as many.

His voice makes my mind cum and fall asleep

Great voice and a great collection of ideas - if you want to fall asleep to something this is by far the best option.

Not s in-depth with numbers as I would have liked

Not s in-depth with numbers as I would have liked but still interesting. Easy to understand

This was way over-rated!

What disappointed you about Thinking in Numbers?

The narrator was slow and monotonous and it meandered and then just in the middle of speaking the narrator would change to a completely different person. Just not that good.

2 people found this helpful