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Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them: A Cosmic Quest from Zero to Infinity
A fun, dazzling exploration of the strange numbers that illuminate the ultimate nature of reality.
For particularly brilliant theoretical physicists like James Clerk Maxwell, Paul Dirac, or Albert Einstein, the search for mathematical truths led to strange new understandings of the ultimate nature of reality. But what are these truths? What are the mysterious numbers that explain the universe?
In Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them, the leading theoretical physicist and YouTube star Antonio Padilla takes us on an irreverent cosmic tour of nine of the most extraordinary numbers in physics, offering a startling picture of how the universe works. These strange numbers 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 nature can never be definitively proved, because to do so would take so much time that the universe would experience a Poincaré recurrence--resetting to precisely the state it currently holds, down to the arrangement of individual atoms; and 10^{-120}, measuring the desperately unlikely balance of energy needed to allow the universe to exist for more than just a moment, to extend beyond the size of a single atom--in other words, the mystery of our unexpected universe.
Leading us down the rabbit hole to a deeper understanding of reality, Padilla explains how these unusual numbers are the key to understanding such mind-boggling phenomena as black holes, relativity, and the problem of the cosmological constant--that the two best and most rigorously tested ways of understanding the universe contradict one another. Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them is a combination of popular and cutting-edge science--and a lively, entertaining, and even funny exploration of the most fundamental truths about the universe.
For particularly brilliant theoretical physicists like James Clerk Maxwell, Paul Dirac, or Albert Einstein, the search for mathematical truths led to strange new understandings of the ultimate nature of reality. But what are these truths? What are the mysterious numbers that explain the universe?
In Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them, the leading theoretical physicist and YouTube star Antonio Padilla takes us on an irreverent cosmic tour of nine of the most extraordinary numbers in physics, offering a startling picture of how the universe works. These strange numbers 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 nature can never be definitively proved, because to do so would take so much time that the universe would experience a Poincaré recurrence--resetting to precisely the state it currently holds, down to the arrangement of individual atoms; and 10^{-120}, measuring the desperately unlikely balance of energy needed to allow the universe to exist for more than just a moment, to extend beyond the size of a single atom--in other words, the mystery of our unexpected universe.
Leading us down the rabbit hole to a deeper understanding of reality, Padilla explains how these unusual numbers are the key to understanding such mind-boggling phenomena as black holes, relativity, and the problem of the cosmological constant--that the two best and most rigorously tested ways of understanding the universe contradict one another. Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them is a combination of popular and cutting-edge science--and a lively, entertaining, and even funny exploration of the most fundamental truths about the universe.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published July 5, 2022
345 people are currently reading
4942 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 162 reviews
July 20, 2022
I expected this to be a popular maths title, so was somewhat surprised to find it's actually a physics and cosmology book, but using the hooks of interesting numbers. As well as being slightly thrown by the title, I thought the introduction was remarkably similar to Douglas Adams' description of the way that the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy gets far too over-excited about how mindbogglingly big the universe is, but eventually it settles down and you get some useful stuff. Antonio Padilla's introduction was loaded with rhetoric on how biggly wonderful it was all going to be.
Once we get into the chapters proper, though, it does settle down a bit and Padilla gives us a whole range of mathematical insights to physical theories. We start with time dilation and relativity more generally before leaping to supermassive black holes. From here the dance of ideas continues - googols and googolplexes bring up the possibility of cosmic doppelgängers, while we then jump again to thermodynamics (with no numbers for quite a long time until statistical mechanics brings those big numbers back). Of course the next leap to quantum physics gives us whole new reasons to think in terms of big numbers... and so it goes.
A section on small numbers is mostly concerned with particle physics (with a lot on the Higgs boson) before we finally plunge into infinity. Here we get a nice gallop through the history of infinity - mostly mathematical without much physical context (perhaps surprisingly the role of infinity in calculus, so central to physics, hardly gets a mention). Things get interesting when we get to the problems of infinity for QED and how they were dealt with, finishing with a paean to string theory.
One problem I had with all of this is there's a kind of forced quirkiness throughout that never quite works - from the title's play on the Harry Potter spinoff title to, for example, the idea of using the number 1.000000000000000858 as a 'big number' because this is the time dilation factor that Usain Bolt would have undergone when racing in 2009, which feels arbitrary to the point of... pointlessness. I also really disliked the way that Padilla treats speculative theories such as what he refers to in the introduction as 'the holographic truth' (what's usually called the holographic principle), something that is largely self-referential maths driven by the increasingly doubted string theory and that has no current way of being tested. He later rather fudges the answer as to whether or not the holographic principle is real, but unconvincingly calls it 'the most important idea to have emerged in physics in the last 30 years.'
I didn't dislike this book, and there were indubitably some interesting bits and pieces in it, but it was all far too Tiggerish for me.
Once we get into the chapters proper, though, it does settle down a bit and Padilla gives us a whole range of mathematical insights to physical theories. We start with time dilation and relativity more generally before leaping to supermassive black holes. From here the dance of ideas continues - googols and googolplexes bring up the possibility of cosmic doppelgängers, while we then jump again to thermodynamics (with no numbers for quite a long time until statistical mechanics brings those big numbers back). Of course the next leap to quantum physics gives us whole new reasons to think in terms of big numbers... and so it goes.
A section on small numbers is mostly concerned with particle physics (with a lot on the Higgs boson) before we finally plunge into infinity. Here we get a nice gallop through the history of infinity - mostly mathematical without much physical context (perhaps surprisingly the role of infinity in calculus, so central to physics, hardly gets a mention). Things get interesting when we get to the problems of infinity for QED and how they were dealt with, finishing with a paean to string theory.
One problem I had with all of this is there's a kind of forced quirkiness throughout that never quite works - from the title's play on the Harry Potter spinoff title to, for example, the idea of using the number 1.000000000000000858 as a 'big number' because this is the time dilation factor that Usain Bolt would have undergone when racing in 2009, which feels arbitrary to the point of... pointlessness. I also really disliked the way that Padilla treats speculative theories such as what he refers to in the introduction as 'the holographic truth' (what's usually called the holographic principle), something that is largely self-referential maths driven by the increasingly doubted string theory and that has no current way of being tested. He later rather fudges the answer as to whether or not the holographic principle is real, but unconvincingly calls it 'the most important idea to have emerged in physics in the last 30 years.'
I didn't dislike this book, and there were indubitably some interesting bits and pieces in it, but it was all far too Tiggerish for me.
May 18, 2023
Voyage to the realm of huge numbers, such as Googolplex, Graham's number, and Tree(3) in the early chapters was a mind-boggling trip for me. It's impossible to grasp how large these numbers are, as the author put it: “ if you were to try and picture Graham’s number in your head – its decimal representation written out in full – your head would collapse into a black hole. It’s a condition known as black hole head death and there is no known cure.”
And then: “Although this is big – bigger even than a Kardashian closet – it is finite”.
I was also drawn in by the history of the number zero and how various Mayan, Egyptian, and Babylonian civilisations employed it. as well as recognition of infinity and how religion and philosophy deal with it.
However, I suspect that Antonio Padilla utilised these exciting numbers as a pretext to address important physics topics since string theory, Higgs Boson, and the holographic principle were explored in the following chapters.
A significant portion of this book will be incomprehensible unless you have a rudimentary understanding of fundamental physics and astrophysics concepts, notably subatomic particles, fields, event horizon, and entropy. As a result, it is recommended for individuals who are familiar with these subjects or have enough curiosity to explore them in other sources when they come across them within the text. An astrophysicist seems like a great match.
Even though I learned a lot from this book, When I finished it, I felt like I had read five articles on various physics and mathematics subjects rather than a book with a single framework. While the book's title may be deceptive to the reader, it was a wise choice because these subjects cannot be gathered under any other umbrella.
The author's attempts to include historical details about scientists within his scientific explanations have added to the work's appeal. Many scientific notions were taken for granted. To properly comprehend the significance of a scientist's contribution, it is helpful to plot these milestones on a timeline And notice how their efforts are put together to shape our perception of reality. In this respect, I believe the author was quite successful. Needless to say, hearing about Persia’s great mathematician al-Khwarizmi and polymath -al-Ghazali in this context was a treat.
One of my favourites:
“A theory is natural if it doesn’t contain any unexplained and finely tuned inputs. You can have some small or precise numbers, but only if you understand the physics that underpins them. Without that understanding, the likelihood is that something is missing, or the theory is fundamentally wrong, as in the case of geocentric cosmology. Of course, to some extent, naturalness is just an aesthetic consideration – it should never be used ahead of experimental data. But when the data isn’t quite ready to guide us, it seems that naturalness is an able deputy.”
And then: “Although this is big – bigger even than a Kardashian closet – it is finite”.
I was also drawn in by the history of the number zero and how various Mayan, Egyptian, and Babylonian civilisations employed it. as well as recognition of infinity and how religion and philosophy deal with it.
However, I suspect that Antonio Padilla utilised these exciting numbers as a pretext to address important physics topics since string theory, Higgs Boson, and the holographic principle were explored in the following chapters.
A significant portion of this book will be incomprehensible unless you have a rudimentary understanding of fundamental physics and astrophysics concepts, notably subatomic particles, fields, event horizon, and entropy. As a result, it is recommended for individuals who are familiar with these subjects or have enough curiosity to explore them in other sources when they come across them within the text. An astrophysicist seems like a great match.
Even though I learned a lot from this book, When I finished it, I felt like I had read five articles on various physics and mathematics subjects rather than a book with a single framework. While the book's title may be deceptive to the reader, it was a wise choice because these subjects cannot be gathered under any other umbrella.
The author's attempts to include historical details about scientists within his scientific explanations have added to the work's appeal. Many scientific notions were taken for granted. To properly comprehend the significance of a scientist's contribution, it is helpful to plot these milestones on a timeline And notice how their efforts are put together to shape our perception of reality. In this respect, I believe the author was quite successful. Needless to say, hearing about Persia’s great mathematician al-Khwarizmi and polymath -al-Ghazali in this context was a treat.
One of my favourites:
“A theory is natural if it doesn’t contain any unexplained and finely tuned inputs. You can have some small or precise numbers, but only if you understand the physics that underpins them. Without that understanding, the likelihood is that something is missing, or the theory is fundamentally wrong, as in the case of geocentric cosmology. Of course, to some extent, naturalness is just an aesthetic consideration – it should never be used ahead of experimental data. But when the data isn’t quite ready to guide us, it seems that naturalness is an able deputy.”
August 20, 2022
** Thanks to NetGalley, Antonio Padilla, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this ARC. Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them: A Cosmic Quest from Zero to Infinity is out now. **
This was a fascinating, accessible book about physics told through numbers. Padilla is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist at The University of Nottingham, with a clear passion for the deep beauty of numbers and physics. Sometimes books written by academics are inaccessible to the average reader, but Padilla manages to be thorough and expansive while also being easily understandable. He uses wonderful metaphors and his conversational writing style makes it feel as though you are just discusses the secrets of the universe with a friend.
I love a good physics book and this was one of my favorites.
This was a fascinating, accessible book about physics told through numbers. Padilla is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist at The University of Nottingham, with a clear passion for the deep beauty of numbers and physics. Sometimes books written by academics are inaccessible to the average reader, but Padilla manages to be thorough and expansive while also being easily understandable. He uses wonderful metaphors and his conversational writing style makes it feel as though you are just discusses the secrets of the universe with a friend.
I love a good physics book and this was one of my favorites.
August 27, 2024
What a satisfying brain-bender of a book! Judging by the title, Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them: A Cosmic Quest from Zero to Infinity, you might expect a lesson in mathematics. While there's plenty of math to be had, this is better described as a physics book. Which is probably why the paperback edition was released with an updated subtitle: A Journey to the Edge of Physics. Padilla is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist at the University of Nottingham. He is also a regular star on the popular YouTube channel Numberphile. He's a gifted explainer, a member of the intellectual tradition he is relating, and this is a great way to add to your scientific knowledge. Just be aware that for non-physicists like [probably] you and [definitely] me, there are concepts you're just going to have to accept and keep on moving.
Padilla breaks down the chapters into three larger sections: big numbers, little numbers, and infinity. It's never just about the numbers, though: there's going to be an interesting physics lesson accompanying each prompt. In the chapter titled "1.000000000000000858" (first of the "big" numbers, though it doesn't sound very big), he unpacks how speed affects the passage of time. The number of the title refers to the amount of time dilation Usain Bolt experienced in 2009 when he set his world record in 2009; the fastest a human has ever moved without technical assistance. Once that's established, we're ready to move on to how spacetime is affected by proximity to the Earth's center, or near a black hole.
The next big number is is a Googol, a 1 followed by 100 zeroes. Padilla uses this to start a conversation about entropy. Then, a Googolplex, a 1 followed by A GOOGOL ZEROES. Now we're talking about frequency and amplitude, double-slit experiments, and whether your exact doppelgänger lives in a neighboring branch of the multiverse. We are then introduced to Graham's Number, which was new to me: it's a series of stacked exponentiations that result in a number so large, if your brain had the capacity to hold it, it would be dense enough to collapse into a black hole brain. This comes with a side of Ramsay Theory and Information Theory and de Sitter horizons. With the final big number, TREE(3), we are introduced to a game of non-repetition that could play out through the death-and-rebirth of our universe multiple times over.
Next we're on to little numbers. Zero gets its own chapter, with its fascinating history of arriving out of necessity (thanks, India!), but taking the longest to come to the West (thanks for nothing, Aristotle! Wait... NO thanks for nothing.). Just above zero, we have "0.0000000000000001", a chapter about the Higgs Boson. Even closer to zero is a chapter called "10^-120", which is about the ongoing embarrassment of the cosmological constant. There's also a final section with a single chapter on infinity, and how not all infinities are alike.
There are many fascinating lessons baked into these chapters in addition (and multiplication) to the ones listed above, but my attempts to summarize them would be tedious. There are also a host of characters involved in each development and advance of our understanding of the natural world. You may recognize Einstein, Bohr, Schrödinger, Maxwell, Feynman, Pauli, Oppenheimer, Planck, Fermat, Euler, Heisenberg, Hawking, and a host of other names from math and physics. It's fun to see where each enters the story, and how their discoveries added to or bucked against the ones that preceded them. For each recognizable name, there are new ones as well: important figures to the development of our collective understanding of the universe.
Padilla does an impressive job of unpacking these esoteric, complex, fantastic and sometimes [literally] brain-imploding numbers. There are plenty of useful illustrations and contemporary references to keep things relatable. I found it helpful to listen to the audio book while reading the physical one: it let me keep a constant pace, and also hear the author's pronunciations of various terms I'd be unsure of how to vocalize.
Padilla breaks down the chapters into three larger sections: big numbers, little numbers, and infinity. It's never just about the numbers, though: there's going to be an interesting physics lesson accompanying each prompt. In the chapter titled "1.000000000000000858" (first of the "big" numbers, though it doesn't sound very big), he unpacks how speed affects the passage of time. The number of the title refers to the amount of time dilation Usain Bolt experienced in 2009 when he set his world record in 2009; the fastest a human has ever moved without technical assistance. Once that's established, we're ready to move on to how spacetime is affected by proximity to the Earth's center, or near a black hole.
The next big number is is a Googol, a 1 followed by 100 zeroes. Padilla uses this to start a conversation about entropy. Then, a Googolplex, a 1 followed by A GOOGOL ZEROES. Now we're talking about frequency and amplitude, double-slit experiments, and whether your exact doppelgänger lives in a neighboring branch of the multiverse. We are then introduced to Graham's Number, which was new to me: it's a series of stacked exponentiations that result in a number so large, if your brain had the capacity to hold it, it would be dense enough to collapse into a black hole brain. This comes with a side of Ramsay Theory and Information Theory and de Sitter horizons. With the final big number, TREE(3), we are introduced to a game of non-repetition that could play out through the death-and-rebirth of our universe multiple times over.
Next we're on to little numbers. Zero gets its own chapter, with its fascinating history of arriving out of necessity (thanks, India!), but taking the longest to come to the West (thanks for nothing, Aristotle! Wait... NO thanks for nothing.). Just above zero, we have "0.0000000000000001", a chapter about the Higgs Boson. Even closer to zero is a chapter called "10^-120", which is about the ongoing embarrassment of the cosmological constant. There's also a final section with a single chapter on infinity, and how not all infinities are alike.
There are many fascinating lessons baked into these chapters in addition (and multiplication) to the ones listed above, but my attempts to summarize them would be tedious. There are also a host of characters involved in each development and advance of our understanding of the natural world. You may recognize Einstein, Bohr, Schrödinger, Maxwell, Feynman, Pauli, Oppenheimer, Planck, Fermat, Euler, Heisenberg, Hawking, and a host of other names from math and physics. It's fun to see where each enters the story, and how their discoveries added to or bucked against the ones that preceded them. For each recognizable name, there are new ones as well: important figures to the development of our collective understanding of the universe.
Padilla does an impressive job of unpacking these esoteric, complex, fantastic and sometimes [literally] brain-imploding numbers. There are plenty of useful illustrations and contemporary references to keep things relatable. I found it helpful to listen to the audio book while reading the physical one: it let me keep a constant pace, and also hear the author's pronunciations of various terms I'd be unsure of how to vocalize.
January 19, 2025
Informația nu este doar o idee abstractă. Informația este fizică. Ne putem întreba cât cântărește. De exemplu, datele de pe telefonul mobil sunt stocate prin captarea electronilor într-un bloc de memorie. Electronii captați au energie mai mare decât cei liberi și, din aces motiv cântăresc mai mult (conform formulei E=mc2). Dimensiunea întregii sfere globale de date este de aproximativ 10 trilioane de GB, cât masa unui fir de praf.
Cât spațiu de memorie avem nevoie pentru a stoca numărul lui Graham? Numărul lui Graham este uriaș, dar finit. Este reprezentat sub forma unui turn de puteri: 3 la puterea a 3-a la puterea a 3-a etc. Putem folosi capacitatea de stocare a creierului uman, de aproximativ 100 miliarde de biți, pentru a-l stoca. Se pare că aceștia nu sunt suficienți, nici pe departe. Cel mai eficient mod de a stoca informația este într-o gaură neagră. Putem transforma creierul uman într-o gaură neagră. Ar cântări cât 10 Pâmanturi, și tot n-ar fi suficient, nici pe departe. Numărul lui Graham este atât de mare încăt avem nevoie de un UNIVERS MAI MARE pentru a-l stoca.
Autorul respectă o rețetă. Capitolele sunt împărțite în două. Prima jumătate este dedicată matematicii și istoriei, iar cea de-a două jumătate fizicii.
Recomand
Cât spațiu de memorie avem nevoie pentru a stoca numărul lui Graham? Numărul lui Graham este uriaș, dar finit. Este reprezentat sub forma unui turn de puteri: 3 la puterea a 3-a la puterea a 3-a etc. Putem folosi capacitatea de stocare a creierului uman, de aproximativ 100 miliarde de biți, pentru a-l stoca. Se pare că aceștia nu sunt suficienți, nici pe departe. Cel mai eficient mod de a stoca informația este într-o gaură neagră. Putem transforma creierul uman într-o gaură neagră. Ar cântări cât 10 Pâmanturi, și tot n-ar fi suficient, nici pe departe. Numărul lui Graham este atât de mare încăt avem nevoie de un UNIVERS MAI MARE pentru a-l stoca.
Autorul respectă o rețetă. Capitolele sunt împărțite în două. Prima jumătate este dedicată matematicii și istoriei, iar cea de-a două jumătate fizicii.
Recomand
July 15, 2022
This book absolutely destroyed me. I'm familiar with the author through numberphile, and I should've known better than to read this because numberphile makes me want to switch my concentration to math, and this book just incorporated physics into that conversation. Neither are a good idea. I don't think I'll ever stop coming back to math every few years and remembering the way I felt when my middle school math teacher taught me about infinity, but this trip to exploding head land was probably the best yet. One caveat: there are lots of other books out there like this, and I'm not sure whether this one is special because of the actual qualities of the book or when I happened to read it.
ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
September 2, 2022
I want a collection of Ted Chiang stories based on this book, one story for every chapter.
August 4, 2022
What a tour-de-force of a book. Using numbers to take us on a journey through the edge of our understanding of this universe around us, the author has weaved a magical tale of numbers, physics, history and the future of things to come. Immensely enjoyable.
July 29, 2022
It’s remarkable how someone so smart can make something so difficult so approachable for even the most math-challenged reader. I’m the kind of person who has to use Excel for even the most basic additions and yet I understood mostly everything in this fascinating book. There’s history, art, cultural references and simple examples to explain even quantum physics. Padilla uses everything from golf balls, bottles of wine or even relationships amongst people to make the most extraordinary concepts relatable and easy to grasp. He is also the narrator of his own audiobook, so you know you’re getting the ideas straight from his head. I wasn’t sure about getting the audio version, since sometimes it’s easier to see the numbers and equations written down but, to be honest, I don’t think it matters to laypeople as much. There is so much physics, about the universe and how it works, even if no one really knows why. Seriously, if I understood this book, anyone can read it and it’s worth the effort. The concepts explored here are mind-blowing (and I’m not talking about Graham’s number. From zero to infinity, this book shows how wonderful numbers are. I loved it!
I chose to listen to this audiobook and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/#Macmillan Audio!
I chose to listen to this audiobook and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/#Macmillan Audio!
June 15, 2024
Česky vychází jako Fantastická čísla a kde je nalézt: Kosmická výprava od nuly k nekonečnu.
Síla. Nevěřila bych, že nějaké konečné číslo může být šílenější než všechny druhy nekonečen. (Ani nechtějte znát hodnotu TREE(3)). Možná jsem ráda, že jsem vysokou skončila ještě v době před potvrzením Higgsova bosonu.
A v podstatě se nedivím, že Kurt Gödel se vlastně zbláznil.
Parádní proplach mozkových kanálů.
Na chvíli se to přeplo na fyziku, tam jsem se už vůbec nechytala, ale jinak parádní čtení, ovšem je potřeba si to rozložit na delší dobu, tohle bych za den nepojala.
Síla. Nevěřila bych, že nějaké konečné číslo může být šílenější než všechny druhy nekonečen. (Ani nechtějte znát hodnotu TREE(3)). Možná jsem ráda, že jsem vysokou skončila ještě v době před potvrzením Higgsova bosonu.
A v podstatě se nedivím, že Kurt Gödel se vlastně zbláznil.
Parádní proplach mozkových kanálů.
Na chvíli se to přeplo na fyziku, tam jsem se už vůbec nechytala, ale jinak parádní čtení, ovšem je potřeba si to rozložit na delší dobu, tohle bych za den nepojala.
September 15, 2022
This book blew my mind. A number so large that if you thought about it’s decimal placement, it would KILL YOU. The chance of the universe repeating itself, the chance of finding your doppelgänger that has the EXACT same atom arrangement, THE ENERGY OF EMPTY SPACE. And all of these concepts are backed by mathematical proofs. I’m in love
February 24, 2024
More of a 3.5 than a 4.
At the beginning it felt like an additional reading to Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time", but then it gets into quantum mechanics and it starts feeling like a book in itself.
My main issue with the book is that it is already very complicated to try to understand quantum mechanics without any formal mathematical formulation or terminology, and the author insists on pushing watered down analogies and jokes that makes the content more difficult to understand/process.
Nice read to at least know a list of things that I don't yet understand though.
At the beginning it felt like an additional reading to Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time", but then it gets into quantum mechanics and it starts feeling like a book in itself.
My main issue with the book is that it is already very complicated to try to understand quantum mechanics without any formal mathematical formulation or terminology, and the author insists on pushing watered down analogies and jokes that makes the content more difficult to understand/process.
Nice read to at least know a list of things that I don't yet understand though.
July 23, 2022
This was a very good book.
A fun math-meets-physics book.
You can just read Padilla's passion for numbers in this book, and the awe he has for maths.
There is a sense of wonder in this book, and I really appreciated it.
I have been on a mathematics and algorithm kick of books lately and this book was a great addition.
Would recommend!
3.8/5
A fun math-meets-physics book.
You can just read Padilla's passion for numbers in this book, and the awe he has for maths.
There is a sense of wonder in this book, and I really appreciated it.
I have been on a mathematics and algorithm kick of books lately and this book was a great addition.
Would recommend!
3.8/5
September 3, 2023
Man, I feel like I need to up my nerd game.
A deeply fascinating look into numbers from negative infinity to infinitity. Padilla relayed the collegiate-level lessons with analogies to make things a little more relatable!
A deeply fascinating look into numbers from negative infinity to infinitity. Padilla relayed the collegiate-level lessons with analogies to make things a little more relatable!
October 9, 2023
The author does a remarkable job of effortlessly transporting a lay-person into the wonderful and mysterious world of cutting-edge physics. I also enjoyed the short looks into the history and figures behind the topics discussed incorporated throughout the book. I highly recommend that everyone read this engaging book to regain the awe with which they understand and think about our natural world.
December 29, 2022
Well written and enjoyable.
May 9, 2023
While my personal enjoyment of Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them falls closer to the 3-3.5 star range, the quality of the book demands a 4th star.
Math and physics have never been strengths of mine. I did ok in my high school classes, but I’ve always been more of a reader. However, in high school I also took an interest in the fun math side of YouTube on channels like ViHart and Numberphile, where Padilla made regular appearances to explain many of the numbers now featured in entire chapters of this book. With an open mind and the author to narrate the audiobook to me himself, I felt prepared to dive into something outside my comfort zone.
I was interested despite my lack of prior knowledge, and this tension ultimately became a sticking point throughout Fantastic Numbers. I found myself trying to follow along with the hundreds of imaginative situations necessary to explain some very complex topics in math and physics, but in almost every chapter I came to a point where I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
Nonetheless, I persevered and truly enjoyed the book. Behind every number and every problem, there’s a cultural and academic history that Padilla highlights in a way that lends a human appeal to largely abstract concepts. For anyone like myself, I recommend rolling with the punches to appreciate the story behind the numbers. For anyone with a decent grasp on the fundamentals of math and physics, I’m sure you will find this book accessible and mind-blowing!
Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC audiobook!
Math and physics have never been strengths of mine. I did ok in my high school classes, but I’ve always been more of a reader. However, in high school I also took an interest in the fun math side of YouTube on channels like ViHart and Numberphile, where Padilla made regular appearances to explain many of the numbers now featured in entire chapters of this book. With an open mind and the author to narrate the audiobook to me himself, I felt prepared to dive into something outside my comfort zone.
I was interested despite my lack of prior knowledge, and this tension ultimately became a sticking point throughout Fantastic Numbers. I found myself trying to follow along with the hundreds of imaginative situations necessary to explain some very complex topics in math and physics, but in almost every chapter I came to a point where I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it.
Nonetheless, I persevered and truly enjoyed the book. Behind every number and every problem, there’s a cultural and academic history that Padilla highlights in a way that lends a human appeal to largely abstract concepts. For anyone like myself, I recommend rolling with the punches to appreciate the story behind the numbers. For anyone with a decent grasp on the fundamentals of math and physics, I’m sure you will find this book accessible and mind-blowing!
Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC audiobook!
May 20, 2024
I can only give this book 5 stars. I'd rather give it Graham's Number of stars!! Just wow! This book was absolutely mind blowing. I love this type of stuff. Tony Padilla is a theoretical physicist and stunningly brilliant! This book is super cleverly written. Goes in depth in explaining very complex numbers, theories, etc. Explaining as much as possible, because some of this stuff is beyond explanation. Like trying to grasp the magnitude of Graham’s Number. This number is so large that if you were to memorize it, your head would literally explode (or is it implode?) It’s mathematically proven that you would die of black hole head death if you were able to cram the fullness of this number in to your brain. :) Numbers so large that they can’t be written even in scientific notation. Lots of great discussions around TREE (3), which although it is a finite number, it can not be fully written out, because there’s not enough time in the full life of the universe to do so. These numbers make a Googol and a Googolplex seem insanely small, in relation. It also shares a lot about insanely small numbers. From the book description: “Padilla explains how these unusual numbers are the key to understanding such mind-boggling phenomena as black holes, relativity, and the problem of the cosmological constant--that the two best and most rigorously tested ways of understanding the universe contradict one another.” This book also has quite a few drawings and images that really help with understanding a bit more. If you are even remotely interested in numbers, or physics, or the universe, or extra dimensions :) I highly recommend this book. Check out Brady Haran’s YouTube page as well—@Numberphile. Padilla is in so many of the videos on this page. Enjoy!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 11, 2022
I felt a little cheated by this book. It is well written and entertaining, and should be on the to-read list for any popular science fan, but it is a book about "fantastic numbers" in physics not just "fantastic numbers". As a result about half the book is taken up with descriptions of physics and only half with the eponymous fantastic numbers.
This is fair enough as Padilla is a physicist not a mathematician, but I feel as though I've read a hundred popular science books about physics and I'm not sure Padilla added anything new to this. He writes well, but the material has been so thoroughly covered by other authors that it's hard to find anything new in it.
I'm being a little unfair as Padilla discusses Graham's number and TREE(3), neither of which are used in physics. However these are exceptions and the rest of the book is highly physics orientated. This seems a shame as there are dozens, maybe thousands of fantastic numbers in mathematics, but I concede that most of these are rather abstract and hard to understand for the non-mathematician. I guess Padilla was wise to ignore them.
In the end I gave the book four stars as I'm sure many people will thoroughly enjoy reading it. If you enjoy reading popular physics books and haven't already been saturated by existing publications then I can recommend Padilla's book. It's just that for me it didn't quite live up to it's title.
This is fair enough as Padilla is a physicist not a mathematician, but I feel as though I've read a hundred popular science books about physics and I'm not sure Padilla added anything new to this. He writes well, but the material has been so thoroughly covered by other authors that it's hard to find anything new in it.
I'm being a little unfair as Padilla discusses Graham's number and TREE(3), neither of which are used in physics. However these are exceptions and the rest of the book is highly physics orientated. This seems a shame as there are dozens, maybe thousands of fantastic numbers in mathematics, but I concede that most of these are rather abstract and hard to understand for the non-mathematician. I guess Padilla was wise to ignore them.
In the end I gave the book four stars as I'm sure many people will thoroughly enjoy reading it. If you enjoy reading popular physics books and haven't already been saturated by existing publications then I can recommend Padilla's book. It's just that for me it didn't quite live up to it's title.
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October 15, 2022
What I thought would be a math driven book is actually more rooted in physics. That doesn’t make the book bad, just not as expected. I certainly learned quite a bit more after reading it but felt the author rambled a bit too much and instead of making a point and moving on, some points were then lost to the rambling.
I didn’t love it, but I also didn’t hate it.
I’m leaving this review voluntarily after receiving a free copy in a Goodreads giveaway.
I didn’t love it, but I also didn’t hate it.
I’m leaving this review voluntarily after receiving a free copy in a Goodreads giveaway.
August 20, 2023
Googoplex, Tree(3), infinity, zero oder Grahams number. Der Physiker Antonio Padilla nimmt einen mit in diese „kopfzerbrechenden“ Zahlen und erklärt sehr verständnisvoll, was es damit auf sich hat und wie man auf die „Lösung“ gekommen ist. Es ist dementsprechend auch eine kleine Zeitreise in die Gedanken von Mathematikern, die sich mit diesen Problemen lange beschäftigt haben.
Wer sich schon immer gefragt hat, warum man sich mit bestimmten mathematischen Fragestellungen in der Uni oder Schule beschäftigt hat, der ist mit diesem Buch an der richtigen Stelle.
Wer sich schon immer gefragt hat, warum man sich mit bestimmten mathematischen Fragestellungen in der Uni oder Schule beschäftigt hat, der ist mit diesem Buch an der richtigen Stelle.
April 14, 2024
Contrary to what you might think, this is not a book about mathematics, but primarily about physics.
The author tries to give a popular introduction to many features of quantum mechanics, but instead of creating a tiny understanding in my mind, he only managed to increase my realization of how little I understand. This may, of course, be useful at some level, but I don't think it was the author's intention.
In any case, it is not a book I would recommend.
The author tries to give a popular introduction to many features of quantum mechanics, but instead of creating a tiny understanding in my mind, he only managed to increase my realization of how little I understand. This may, of course, be useful at some level, but I don't think it was the author's intention.
In any case, it is not a book I would recommend.
December 3, 2023
This book left me feeling disappointed. The title and the foreword got me excited to read it but the rest of the book did not follow through. Turned out to just be another collection of biographies of the same dudes. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s been done time and again.
December 28, 2024
A long but generally enjoyable trip through the numbers that make up the high and low end of the spectrum. It seemed like this was 2 books in one, one about theoretical mathematics and another on cosmological curiosities. Just didn’t grip me the same as some other similar titles.
January 16, 2023
I had a really hard time connecting with/understanding this material.
March 11, 2023
I found the holographic principle fascinating to learn about and Padilla's analogies really help me get a better understanding of what the principle is about. Overall, great book with lots of interesting physics. My only complaint would be at times, the analogies are not fully tied back to the physical concept, making it hard to make the connection.
January 21, 2024
i love physics!! too bad i suck at math. i want to slow down time when i run really fast
June 9, 2024
DNF, just too much, I wanted to like it, I may just be too stupid to understand
July 12, 2024
Some significant numbers at either side of the spectrum from gigantic to minuscule. How they tie in to quantum mechanics and cosmology.
July 31, 2022
Well this was something else.
I was 100% trapped by the title. It’s amazing and I needed to read this. Im not a numbers person in the slightest, but I found that this gave me plenty to consider and think about. It definitely shared some facts that I didn’t know, the personal stories included made it feel less like throwing out facts and more like sharing stories around facts and the narration was spot on.
I received the audio version from NetGalley and it was definitely worth the listen. It’s enjoyable even for those of us that struggle with numbers (like myself).
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I was 100% trapped by the title. It’s amazing and I needed to read this. Im not a numbers person in the slightest, but I found that this gave me plenty to consider and think about. It definitely shared some facts that I didn’t know, the personal stories included made it feel less like throwing out facts and more like sharing stories around facts and the narration was spot on.
I received the audio version from NetGalley and it was definitely worth the listen. It’s enjoyable even for those of us that struggle with numbers (like myself).
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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