"One of the happier effects of the explosion in popular science books isthat every so often an author presents scientific ideas in a new way. Thetitle refers to a party piece that goes like this. Take any three-digit numberwhose first and last digits differ by 2 or more. Reverse it, and subtract thesmaller number from the bigger. Add the result to its own reversal. The answerwill be 1089, always.Starting from such minimalist material, David Acheson works his way up to chaosand catastrophe. Not a page passes without at least one intriguing insight.

Eventhe 1089 trick is used later to justify the importance of algebra, and thenecessity for proof is made crystal clear. This is a clever book, and anythingbut trivial. Anyone who is baffled by mathematics should buy it. And allmathematicians should buy at least a dozen copies to hand out to people theymeet at parties. My enthusiasm for it knows no bounds " New Scientist.