The mystery of prime numbers

The Mystery of the Prime Numbers takes its readers on a journey into the inner workings of the number system. It makes use of an innovative visual approach to communicate some surprisingly advanced mathematical ideas without any need for formulas, equations, x's or y's. Brought to life by the gently psychedelic cartoon imagery of illustrator Matt Tweed, we can confidently say that nothing like this book has been created before. It's not just another "popular science" book about prime numbers (neither is it a book of woolly New Age number mysticism!) – rather, the issue of prime numbers acts as a gateway into some truly strange philosophical territory whose relevance extends well beyond abstract mathematics and which is genuinely worthy of the word "mystery". By the end of this volume, readers will have been shown conclusively that whatever it is, the seemingly familiar system of counting numbers is not what you thought it was! This book can be read by anyone who understands the basic ideas of counting, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, who has a general curiosity about the nature of things and who is able to concentrate hard enough to, say, work on a simple Sudoku puzzle.