Is That a Big Number?
Andrew Elliott
Reviews and Awards
"... an enjoyable useful book...that helps the reader better interpret and engage with the numbers around them. I enjoyed reading it, and learned from it." -- Francis Hunt, The Mathematical Gazette
Is That a Big Number? is an easy but excellent read for the person who wants to understand large numbers in context of everyday life ... A key tenet of this book is the idea of comparison: every example is stacked against a well-known fact. Every chapter ends with a list of (approximate) relations to help the reader grasp magnitudes of heights, distances, weights, and riches." -- Megan Sawyer, Mathematical Association of America
"The book illustrates well that knowledge (being numerate) is power." -- Adhemar Bultheel, European Mathematical Society
"Wide-ranging and highly accessible, this book is chock-full of fascinating nuggets, providing a rich source of colourful examples of numbers and how they are used. It shows how numeracy and literacy are two sides of the same coin." -- David J. Hand, Senior Research Investigator and Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Imperial College, London
"This book explores mathematics in a way I have never thought about before. Elliott offers explanations to mathematical ideas in new ways and made them much easier for me to understand." -- Jamie A. Griffin, Yale National Initiative