Mathematics pervades our daily lives. It is intimately involved whenever one starts a car, switches on the television, flies on a plane, forecasts the weather, books a holiday on the internet, programmes a computer, navigates heavy traffic, analyses statistical data, or seeks a cure for a disease. Or credit cards and the nations defence secrets are kept secure by encryption methods based on prime ministers.

This book presents mathematics with a human face, celebrating the achievements of the great mathematicians in their historical context. Here you will meet time-measurers, astronomers, logicians, calculators, geometers and arithmeticians, as well as such well-known figures as Napoleon, Geoffrey Chaucer