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NEW SERIESThe Biography of Numbers

SET INCLUDES FOUR TITLESSet Price ............................................... $109.80 Individual Titles ....................................$27.45Set ....................................978-1-59935-390-67.5 x 9.5

ZERO64 pages © 2014978-1-59935-392-0NUMERALS64 pages © 2014978-1-59935-396-8

MEASUREMENT64 pages © 2014978-1-59935-398-2PI64 pages © 2014978-1-59935-394-4

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Ancient peoples measured out distances with forearms and feet. Modern peoples use precise standards weighed against natural processes like the speed of light. In the thousands of years in between, human beings invented cubits and furlongs and liters—in fact, an astonishing variety of units—to measure the physical world. In The Biography of Numbers: Measurement, emperors and revolutionaries, scientists and founding fathers try and fail to impose orderly standards, yet in their own ways contribute to the realization of the dream of a single, worldwide system of measurement.

Kevin Cunningham is the author of more than thirty books, including biographies of Joseph Stalin and J. Edgar Hoover and a four-part series on diseases in history.

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Greensboro, north Carolina Kevin Cunningham

MEASUREMENTTHe bIoGrApHy of NUMbers:

MEASUREMENTTHe bIoGrApHy of NUMbers:

Mathematicians define pi as the ratio of a circle’s diameter to its circumference. But pi has long captured the human imagination, inspiring thinkers to look beyond its simple definition. Since ancient times, mathematicians labored for years of their lives to advance pi just a handful of decimal places. Even computers able to calculate pi to trillions of decimal places have yet to reveal pi’s secrets—or find its limits.

Kevin Cunningham is the author of more than thirty books, including biographies of Joseph Stalin and J. Edgar Hoover and a four-part series on diseases in history. π

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Kevin Cunningham

PiTHe bIoGrApHy of NUMbers:

PiTHe bIoGrApHy of NUMbers:

The ancient Sumerians wrote numbers on clay tablets, the Chinese on bones, the Maya on monuments. The systems they used helped human beings to conduct trade, create calendars, and organize their ideas of the very workings of the universe. The Biography of Numbers: Numerals reveals how our system of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 0 emerged from ancient ideas to take their familiar form in India—and how the system changed human endeavor forever.

Kevin Cunningham is the author of more than thirty books, including biographies of Joseph Stalin and J. Edgar Hoover and a four-part series on diseases in history.

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Greensboro, north Carolina Kevin Cunningham

NUMERALSTHe bIoGrApHy of NUMbers:

NUMERALSTHe bIoGrApHy of NUMbers:0The Sumerians and Mayans flirted with zero, but failed

to find it. The Greeks feared it as representing a great nothingness, a void, while the Roman Catholic Church condemned it as the work of the devil. The History of Numbers: Zero traces how zero grew from a harmless placeholder to an idea that shook the intellectual and religious life of the European and Islamic worlds—and changed not only how humanity worked with numbers, but how we came to view the universe.

Kevin Cunningham is the author of more than thirty books, including biographies of Joseph Stalin and J. Edgar Hoover and a four-part series on diseases in history.

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Kevin Cunningham

ZEROTHe bIoGrApHy of NUMbers:

ZEROTHe bIoGrApHy of NUMbers:

“Strongly reccomended as a resource to support STEM initiatives in schools. A fascinating look at how we have arrived at the units of measure that are in current use around the world.” -Tri State Young Adult

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