The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers

First published in 1986, this mind-boggling and entertaining dictionary, arranged in order of magnitude, exposes the fascinating facts about certain numbers and number sequences - very large primes, amicable numbers and golden squares to give but a few examples.

David Wells was born in 1940. He had the rare distinction of being a Cambridge scholar in mathematics and failing his degree. He subsequently trained as a teacher and after working on computers and teaching machines taught mathematics and science in primary schools and mathematics in secondary schools. While at university he became the British under-21 chess champion, and in the mid 1970s was a game inventor, a puzzle composer, and the puzzle editor of Games and Puzzles magazine. From 1981 to 1983 he published The Problem Solver, a magazine of mathematical problems for students. He has published several books of problems and popular mathematics including The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Geometry, The Penguin Book of Curious and Interesting Puzzles, The Penguin Book of Curious and Interesting Mathematics, and, also for Penguin, You Are a Mathematician.