Description
For Over A Century, millions of devoted readers have reveled in the whimsical charms and literary brilliance of the works of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who took up the pen as Lewis Carroll. Indeed, it's hard to escape a childhood without delighting in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. But only a few have fully appreciated the mathematical mind that brought these numerous literary creations into being. Fascinated by the inner life of Dodgson, Robin Wilson, a Carroll scholar and noted mathematics professor, has produced this revelatory book-filled with more than one hundred striking and often playful illustrations-that examines the many inspirations and sources for Carroll's fantastical writings, mathematical and otherwise. Lewis Carroll in Numberland is filled with tantalizing puzzles and little-known facts: Using an easy-to-learn method devised by Dodgson, you can actually find the day of the week for any given date in history. Queen Victoria was said to have enjoyed Alice's Adventures in Wonderland so much that she demanded "the next book Mr. Carroll procduced," which was An Elementary Treatise on Determinants and left the queen not amused. You can employ Dodgson's invented alphabet and matrix ciphers to write your own encoded messages to friends.